Mon  and  Life 


(■Impel  Addresses  given  at  the 
Mendville  Theological  School 


GIFT  or 


v — ^ 


RELIGION  AND  LIFE 


RELIGION  AND  LIFE 


M 


CHAPEL  ADDRESSES  BY 

MEMBERS  OF  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE 

MEADVILLE 

THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOL 


:*••!>• 


BOSTON 
SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &f  COMPANY 

1909 


Copyright,  1909 
Sherman,  French  &+  Company 


V 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

This  volume  comprises  addresses  made  by 
members  of  the  teaching  community  of  the  Mead- 
ville  Theological  School.  The  authors  are  men 
who  are  exempt  from  every  dogmatic  constraint 
imposed  by  institutions  and  are  accustomed  to 
shape  and  to  utter  their  convictions  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  a  chartered  freedom.  They  are  con- 
tent with  the  natural  and  unforced  unity  which 
is  born  of  a  common  purpose  and  a  common 
method  of  considering  the  religious  life.  The 
methods  and  results  of  Biblical  Criticism  and  of 
the  critical  historical  study  of  all  religions  have 
become  long  since  the  law  of  their  thinking.  The 
volume  is  not  designed  to  illustrate  the  negative 
tendencies  of  the  critical  spirit,  but  rather  to  give 
expression  to  the  affirmative  faith  animating  men 
habituated  to  such  conditions  of  theological  in- 
quiry and  so  to  evidence  the  present  tone  and 
spirit  of  this  school  of  devout  study.  The  se- 
lection of  these  addresses  has  been  guided  there- 
fore not  by  the  need  of  completeness  in  discus- 
sion, but  by  the  practical  desire  to  apply  the 
religion  of  free  inquirers  to  the  hearts  and  lives 
of  men. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.    INTELLECTUAL  VIRTUE         ....      3 

Nicholas  Paine  Gilman. 

II.    A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION  ...     19 
Walter  C.  Green. 

III.  UNIVERSALITY  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS 

SENTIMENT 43 

George  L.  Cary. 

IV.  THE  PRESENT  GOD 57 

Frank  C.  Doan. 

V.    THE  JOY  OF  RELIGION 69 

Francis  A.  Christie. 

VI.    THE  PROPHET'S  FUNCTION        ...     81 
Henry  Preserved  Smith. 

VII.    JESUS'  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION     .     95 
Francis  A.  Christie. 

VIII.    THE  TRUE  ATONEMENT Ill 

William  H.  Fish. 

IX.    THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD 129 

Clayton  R.  Bowen. 

X.    A  SOCIAL  GOSPEL 149 

Nicholas  Paine  Gilman. 

XI.    JESUS  THE  FULFILMENT      ....  167 
Henry  Preserved  Smith. 

XII.    PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT     ...  179 
Henry  H.  Barber. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XIII.  THE  INVISIBLE  HUMANITY  OF  GOD  199 

Frank  C.  Doan. 

XIV.  THE  SERVILE  LIFE  AND  THE   FIL- 

IAL LIFE 213 

Clayton  R.  Bowen. 

XV.    THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION  ...  231 
Franklin  C.  Southworth. 

XVI.    RETRIBUTION     HERE     AND     HERE- 
AFTER   261 

William  H.  Fish. 


I 

INTELLECTUAL  VIRTUE 

NICHOLAS  PAINE  GILMAN 


INTELLECTUAL  VIRTUE 

"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
mind." —  Mark  xii,  30. 

I  have  chosen  these  words  from  Jesus'  state- 
ment of  the  two  great  commandments  as  a  text 
from  which  to  discourse  this  evening  on  Intel- 
lectual Virtue.  This  is  a  portion  of  indivisible 
human  virtue  to  which,  in  its  larger  aspects, 
preachers  do  not  often  attend;  but  to  it  the 
teacher  of  a  complete  ethic  of  life  is  bound  to 
give  a  high  place.  They  who  assign  it  too  low 
a  place  in  their  scheme  of  morals  are  wont  to  call 
any  discourse  upon  it  from  the  pulpit  a  "  lec- 
ture "  rather  than  a  sermon.  Such  persons  take 
too  narrow  a  view  of  religion  if  they  hold  that 
only  to  be  a  sermon  and  appropriate  to  the  pul- 
pit which  says,  even  to  tedium,  "  Be  good,"  and 
never  informs  us  how  to  be  good,  more  especially 
how  to  be  good  as  intellectual  beings.  One  may 
well  retort  to  such  criticism  that  much  preaching 
would  be  better,  i.  e.,  more  effective,  more  good 
for  something,  if  it  exhorted  us  more  often  to 
beware  of  evils  largely  mental  in  origin  and  char- 
acter, such,  for  instance,  as  prejudice,  narrow- 
mindedness,  bigotry  and  partisanship.  These 
are  diseases  of  thought  which  corrupt  life  and 
vitiate  real  goodness  of  heart. 

The  wise  writer  of  Jewish  proverbs  well  said: 
3 


i  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

"  As  a  man  thinketh  within  himself  so  is  he," 
good  or  bad,  sound  or  unsound.  Our  New  Testa- 
ment writers,  however,  differed  not  only  from  the 
philosophy  (i.  e.,  the  "love  of  wisdom")  of  the 
Greek,  but  also  from  the  Old  Testament  type 
of  religion  in  having  comparatively  little  to  say 
about  wisdom  or  knowledge,  and  the  pursuit  of 
it,  as  a  religious  duty.  Many  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment writers  dwelt  fondly  upon  "  the  wise  man  " 
and  his  excellences.  They  cannot  speak  too 
highly  of  him,  and  they  employ  very  plain  lan- 
guage about  his  opposite,  the  simple  one,  the 
unwise  man,  as  they  do  not  hesitate  to  call  him 
frequently  the  "  fool  " —  a  man  who  may  be  very 
good  in  some  moral  ways,  but  is  obviously,  to  the 
wise,  not  good  for  much,  possibly  almost  good 
for  nothing,  because  of  his  folly,  his  lack  of  in- 
tellectual worth,  of  thinking  ability,  of  power 
to  see  straight,  and  reason  clearly.  But  usually 
he  can  talk  freely,  however  unwisely,  and  there- 
fore the  Book  of  Proverbs  is  led  to  say  of  him: 
"  Though  thou  shouldst  bray  a  fool  in  a  mortar 
with  a  pestle,  among  bruised  grain,  yet  will  not 
his  foolishness  depart  from  him."  Such  plain- 
speaking,  and  there  is  much  of  it  in  the  Old 
Testament  about  this  undesirable  person  in  so- 
ciety, is  exceedingly  wholesome  for  all  of  us,  es- 
pecially for  any  who  tend  to  identify  goodness 
of  heart  with  softness  of  brain.  Yes,  an  occa- 
sional "  lecture,"  if  these  persons  will  so  name  it, 
about  the  duty  of  having  and  being  sound  minds, 


INTELLECTUAL  VIRTUE  5 

and  using  our  minds  morally,  will  do  us  good. 
Though  the  New  Testament  says  little  about  such 
virtues,  they  are  more  and  more  needful  in  our 
modern  life,  and  the  lack  of  them  spoils  much  of 
the  goodness  of  the  sentimentally  good.  A  lit- 
tle heathen  philosophy  even,  as  distinct  from  reli- 
gion, will  serve  to  keep  religion  strong  and  pure: 
some  bracing  chapters  from  the  Old  Testament 
in  praise  of  wisdom  will  greatly  edify  the  Chris- 
tian who  is  closely  confined  to  a  diet  of  "  love." 
Sermons  of  this  complexion  are  surely  Biblical, 
and  they  hold  to  a  part  of  the  Bible  which  shows 
a  vigorous  racial  life,  not  yet  outgrown  or  sup- 
planted. 

A  capable  modern  writer  has  distinguished 
three  main  directions  in  which  "  intellectual  vir- 
tue "  may  be  exhibited  —  in  the  pursuit  of  truth 
—  in  the  communication  of  it  to  others,  and  in 
the  application  of  it  to  life.  It  was  this  last  kind 
of  intellectual  virtue  that  the  writers  of  the  Old 
Testament  had  most  in  mind  when  they  spoke  in 
praise  of  prudence,  as  when  the  prudent  house- 
wife is  held  up  as  an  example,  or  the  prudent  man 
who  foreseeth  the  evil  and  hideth  himself,  while 
the  simple  pass  on  and  are  punished.  Higher 
in  their  estimation  stood  the  wise  man  who  knew 
many  things,  physical  and  social,  and  could 
therefore  counsel  sagely.  No  eulogy  could  be 
too  high  for  the  heavenly  wisdom  conversant  with 
the  many  works  of  God,  and  able  to  advise  us 
well  how  to  lead  our  human  life  uprightly  and 


6  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

nobly.  The  application  of  truth  to  life,  the 
turning  of  truth  of  word  and  of  thought  into 
truth  of  action  is,  indeed,  its  greatest  transfor- 
mation, its  most  needful  use.  The  virtues  shown 
in  the  communication  of  truth,  such  as  truthful- 
ness (i.  e.,  veracity),  candor,  proper  reserve,  and 
consideration  for  the  feelings  of  others,  are 
largely  personal  in  their  direction,  and  they  are 
not  very  often  slighted  by  the  Christian  preacher. 
On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  most  important 
virtues  to  be  shown  in  the  pursuit  of  truth,  such 
as  impartiality,  fair-mindedness,  concentration, 
suspense  of  judgment  in  doubtful  cases,  non- 
partisanship  and  passion  for  reality  find  little 
favor  in  most  of  our  churches,  and  often  their 
plain  opposites  are  actually  encouraged,  directly 
or  indirectly.  To  be  intensely  sectarian  is  a 
form  of  zeal  frequently  fostered,  as  against  sim- 
ple fairness  of  mind;  to  be  partisan,  not  to  be 
just,  is  many  times  thought  the  chief  concern: 
to  be  dogmatic  is  held  far  better  than  to  refuse 
to  be  positive  where  you  do  not  know  and  have 
no  facts  before  you.  It  is  to  such  goodness  of 
mind  as  we  mean  by  thoughtfulness,  studiousness, 
judicial  fairness,  concentration,  accuracy,  and 
discrimination  that  I  invite  your  attention  chiefly 
to-night.  The  virtues  of  the  mind,  then,  I  would 
emphatically  say,  are  as  important  as  the  virtues 
of  the  heart  so-called,  or  the  virtues  of  conscience 
so-called.  Intellectual  virtue  is  inextricably  in- 
terwoven with  heart  and  conscience,  so  that  a  man 


INTELLECTUAL  VIRTUE  7 

cannot  act  justly  without  thinking  wisely;  he 
cannot  be  good  without  being  sincere;  he  cannot 
be  brave  without  concentration;  he  cannot  be 
faithful  without  being  accurate  and  single- 
minded.  Turn  these  statements  right  about,  and 
they  will  be  just  as  correct.  You  cannot  think 
wisely  without  acting  justly;  you  cannot  be  sin- 
cere without  being  good;  you  cannot  concentrate 
your  powers  without  being  brave;  you  cannot 
be  accurate  and  single-minded  without  being 
faithful. 

To  be  virtuous,  as  the  word  itself  shows,  is  to 
be  manly,  or,  to  use  a  word  more  free  from  any 
insinuation  even  of  sex,  it  is  to  excel,  to  be  better, 
i.  e.,  more  competent,  more  able,  more  useful  than 
common.  Virtue  is  excellence;  it  is  not  neces- 
sarily strength.  But  this  is  a  mistake  too  com- 
monly made,  and  so  the  ordinary  man,  knowing 
that  he  has  not  a  strong  mind,  is  apt  to  disregard 
the  fact  that  he  ought  to  have  a  good  mind  so 
far  as  it  goes,  that  he  is  bound  at  least  to  try  to 
have  a  mind  virtuous  intellectually:  that  he 
should,  in  the  first  place,  esteem  intellectual  vir- 
tue very  highly  and  try  hard  to  attain  to  it.  He 
should  not  flatter  himself  that  he  can  be  a  truly 
good  man  and  think  wretchedly  and  talk  fool- 
ishly, from  the  standpoint  of  the  really  wise  and 
sensible,  and  yet  be  just  as  good  as  they  are. 
Our  notions  of  virtue  are  apt  to  be  very  one-sided. 
If  a  man  tells  the  truth,  i.  e.,  speaks  what  he  sup- 
poses to  be  fact,  the  public  is  wont  to  call  him  a 


8  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

good  man :  but  he  may  have  taken  no  pains  to  find 
out  the  truth,  especially  if  the  case  be  one  a  little 
off  the  track  of  ordinary  interests.  He  may  be 
very  unteachable,  very  unwilling  to  learn  of 
other  men.  And  if  he  declares  that  he  is  follow- 
ing his  conscience  in  a  certain  act  and  that  this 
is  the  "  voice  of  God "  to  him,  most  men  will 
easily  consent  to  call  him  a  righteous  man.  So 
it  has  been  in  past  times  too  much.  Nowadays, 
however,  we  are  getting  over  such  irrational  con- 
ceptions of  conscience,  and  such  really  unworthy 
views  of  God  speaking  to  man.  Taking  the 
broadly  social  view  of  human  nature,  rather  than 
the  narrowly  individual  view,  we  inquire  about 
the  intelligence  of  this  person  who  complacently 
thinks  himself  inspired  from  on  high,  and  we  dis- 
criminate the  spirits  that  may,  in  fact,  control 
him  —  we  distinguish  the  spirit  of  ignorance 
from  the  spirit  of  knowledge,  the  spirit  of  con- 
ceit from  the  spirit  of  respect  for  proper  author- 
ity, the  spirit  of  raw  immaturity  from  the  spirit 
of  long  experience.  To  lump  your  private  ig- 
norance, conceit  and  rawness,  and  call  it  the  voice 
of  God,  is  not  religious  but  blasphemous,  and  the 
man  of  common-sense  has  the  full  right  to  name 
such  a  man  a  "  fool "  in  the  good  Old  Testa- 
ment use  of  the  word,  and  to  set  down  such  a 
conscience,  in  Ruskin's  phrase  as  "  the  conscience 
of  an  ass."  Docility,  is,  in  order  of  time,  if  not 
in  order  of  importance,  the  first  of  the  intellectual 
virtues,  to  care  for  true  knowledge,  to  want  to 


INTELLECTUAL  VIRTUE  9 

learn  facts,  to  prize  realities,  and  to  respect  those 
who  appear  to  have  found  out  the  facts  and  to  be 
in  close  touch  with  reality.  Docility  means  a 
proper  respect  before  those  who  know  and  before 
what  they  know  —  the  humility  of  one  who  is 
well  aware  of  the  immensity  of  the  universe,  real- 
izes how  impossible  it  is  for  one  person  to  know 
it  all,  and  is  completely  willing,  therefore,  to  re- 
gard expert  testimony,  the  voice  and  the  opinion 
of  those  who  have  specialized,  who  have  culti- 
vated their  own  garden  intensively,  and  have 
made  it  bring  forth  fruit,  many  fold. 

But  Indocility  stands  at  the  threshold  of  the 
temple  of  knowledge,  and  cries  aloud  that  he  has 
nothing  to  learn ;  that  what  he  knows  is  all  that  is 
worth  knowing:  that  he  cares  neither  for  experi- 
ence nor  for  history.  The  typical  democrat, 
many  thinkers  have  said,  is  such  a  man;  having 
a  vote  in  his  hand  which  counts  for  as  much  as 
any  other  vote,  and  flattered  by  the  demagogue, 
he  rejoices  not  to  know,  and  not  to  follow  those 
who  do  know  far  more  than  himself.  But, 
while  this  may  be  a  common  tendency  in  a  de- 
mocracy, human  nature  counts  for  more  than  any 
form  of  government,  and  human  nature  knows, 
in  the  long  run,  how  to  respect  the  strength  of 
actual  knowledge,  to  regard  the  real  knowers  and 
to  follow  the  accomplished  doers. 

It  is  an  intellectual  vice  for  a  man,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  consider  himself  quite  competent  to  get 
along  without  any  help  from  experts  or  special- 


10  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

ists,  and  to  respect  his  own  opinion  about  a  water 
supply  for  a  town,  for  instance,  or  about  vac- 
cination, or  about  "  faith  cure  "  more  than  the 
opinion  of  those  who  have  long  studied  these 
matters,  and  have  arrived  at  something  that  may 
well  be  called  a  scientific  view  of  them.  Consider 
the  millions  of  people  in  this  country  who  profess 
the  faith  of  "  New  Thought,"  of  "  Christian  Sci- 
ence," of  "  Spiritualism,"  and  many  another  half- 
baked  creed,  and  you  will  believe  that  it  is  chiefly 
a  moral  disease  that  affects  them,  a  possession  by 
the  very  contrary  of  the  intellectual  virtue  of 
docility,  the  primary  condition  of  intellectual 
sanity. 

Fortunately  we  have  in  every  school  of  the 
higher  knowledge  a  persistent  enemy,  a  sure  de- 
stroyer in  the  end  of  intellectual  vice  which  dis- 
regards the  right  ways  of  seeing  a  God  of  Fact. 
The  ways  have  been  learned  by  the  sons  of  men 
through  the  long  discipline  of  many  ages  and 
through  hard  thinking.  In  such  schools  of  sci- 
ence we  learn  also  the  value  of  one  of  the  most 
difficult  of  all  the  intellectual  virtues,  what  the 
logicians  call  "  suspense  of  judgment,"  what  the 
plain  man  calls  "  not  making  up  your  mind  too 
soon,"  what  the  lawyer  would  style  "  waiting  for 
the  facts  to  come  in  before  rendering  your  ver- 
dict." Such  waiting  is  a  most  painful  process 
for  the  common  mind.  We  naturally  prefer  the 
possible  injustice,  or  falsity,  of  a  quick  decision, 
on  the  basis  of  a  few  facts,  and  many  prejudices, 


INTELLECTUAL  VIRTUE  11 

to  the  intellectual  conscientiousness  that  waits 
for  more  light  and  the  slower  decision  of  a  per- 
fectly sober  judgment.  In  personal  matters  we 
perceive  with  comparative  readiness  what  a  gross 
wrong  it  may  be  to  set  down  a  person  accused  of 
any  moral  offense  as  really  guilty  until  he  is 
proved  to  be  an  offender.  How  hard  and  how 
trying  the  burden  of  keeping  our  minds  free 
from  almost  criminal  prejudice  on  the  one  hand, 
and  yet  allowing  fair  weight  to  the  evidence  that 
is  in  at  the  time!  Mental  blindness  from  a  bias 
against  another  of  whom  we  know  little  —  how 
unspeakably  common  that  is ;  and  how  much  less 
common,  on  the  other  hand,  is  prejudice  in  favor 
of  one  we  know  well,  because  of  strong  affection 
for  him?  Who  can  fail  to  see  on  slightest  con- 
sideration how  much  this  suspense  of  judgment 
is  a  matter  of  the  fair  intellect,  of  the  mind  con- 
sciously trying  to  work  correctly,  and  to  confine 
the  feelings  to  their  proper  field  of  action  in  the 
sphere  of  proved  reality!  I  would  not  under- 
rate the  complexity  of  such  situations.  They 
demonstrate  how  little  help  we  get  in  our  tangled 
life  from  general  rules  and  abstract  propositions ; 
how  very  confused  we  often  become  before  this 
or  that  particular  case  in  concrete  life.  All  such 
reflections  go  to  convince  us  of  the  profound  im- 
portance of  suspense  of  judgment,  where  we  have 
no  right  to  decide,  of  the  value  of  waiting,  be- 
fore believing  at  all. 

Fairness  of  mind  includes  much  more  than  this 


12  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

suspense  of  judgment.  It  means  ruling  out  all 
personal  bias  in  disputed  cases,  the  separation  of 
the  individual  from  his  plea,  the  turning  one's 
back  upon  personal  sympathies  and  antipathies, 
and  concentration  upon  the  real  merits  of  the 
case.  Example  is  always  better  than  precept  in 
this  direction.  Well,  then,  take  as  a  great  exam- 
ple of  fairness  of  mind  the  most  human  of  all 
Americans,  the  great  man  whose  centenary  we 
are  observing  this  year,  Abraham  Lincoln. 
Speaking  of  his  uniform  kindliness  towards  his 
political  opponents,  one  of  the  best  of  his  biog- 
raphers says :  "  The  absence  of  animosity  and 
reproach  as  towards  individuals  found  its  root 
not  so  much  in  human  charity  as  in  fairness  of 
thinking.  Lincoln  thought  slowly,  cautiously, 
profoundly,  and  with  a  most  close  accuracy,  but 
above  all  else  he  thought  fairly.  This  capacity 
far  transcended,  or  more  correctly,  differed  from, 
what  is  ordinarily  called  the  judicial  habit  of 
mind.  Many  men  can  weigh  arguments  without 
letting  prejudice  get  into  either  scale,  but  Lin- 
coln carried  on  the  whole  process  of  thinking  not 
only  with  an  equal  clearness  of  perception,  but 
also  with  an  entire  impartiality  of  liking  or  dis- 
liking for  both  sides.  .  .  .  He  had  per- 
fect confidence  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  truth; 
he  was  always  willing  to  tie  fast  to  it,  according 
as  he  could  see  it,  and  then  to  bide  time  with  it." 
(Life  of  Lincoln,  by  John  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  vol.  I, 
p.  139.) 


INTELLECTUAL  VIRTUE  13 

Closely  akin  to  the  intellectual  virtue  of  refus- 
ing to  believe  on  very  insufficient  evidence  is  an- 
other  trait   of   high   value   to   sanity   of   mind. 
This  is  thorough  respect  for  the  limitations  of 
the  human  mind.     So  astonishing  have  been  the 
achievements  of  the  mind  of  man  in  the  last  cen- 
tury of  the  world's  life,  that  we  might  perhaps  be 
pardoned  for  sometimes  thinking  that  nothing  is 
safe   against  its  assault.     But  the  problems   of 
another  life  and  the  nature  of  God  are  very  dif- 
ferent from  those  problems  of  Nature  and  His- 
tory which  have  had  so  much  light  thrown  upon 
them  in  the  latest  generations.     Admiration  of 
the  positive  achievements  of  the  human  mind  may 
not  properly  go  on  to  virtual  denial  of  any  limits 
to  its  powers.     Nothing,  in  fact,  is  more  essential 
to  a  balanced  mind  than  a  perception  of  the  truth 
that  man  is  a  limited  being,  who  should  respect 
the  confines  of  human  intelligence,  and  not  waste 
his  life  upon  the  unknowable  beyond  these  con- 
fines, while  such  a  universe  of  the  knowable  and 
the  profitable  to  know  spreads  its  myriad  invita- 
tions   all    around   him.     And   nowhere   else   has 
proper  humility  been  so  lacking  to  men  as  in  the 
persistent  attempts  of  theologians  and  philoso- 
phers to  discover  the  undiscoverable,  to  give  a 
working  plan   of  the  infinite  and  the  absolute, 
to  sound  the  depths  of  the  mysterious  and  to  scale 
the  heights  of  the  inexplicable.     But,  wherever 
he    goes,    the    superheated    searcher    leaves    the 
marks  of  himself,  not  of  some  other  reality,  re- 


14  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

vealed.  Everywhere  he  projects  himself  and  ad- 
mires what  he  sees.  "  Man,"  said  Goethe  in  one 
of  his  wisest  moments,  "  never  knows  how  an- 
thropomorphic he  is."  The  most  irrational  even 
exalt  their  transient  emotions  to  the  very  seat  of 
Deity,  and  define  Deity  itself  in  pure  terms  of 
man.  Such  was  not  the  way  of  Israel.  As  Mat- 
thew Arnold  has  said :  "  The  spirit  and  tongue 
of  Israel  kept  a  propriety,  a  reserve,  a  sense  of 
the  inadequacy  of  language  in  conveying  man's 
idea  of  God,  which  contrast  strongly  with  the 
license  of  affirmation  in  our  Western  theology. 
Say  what  we  can  about  God,  say  our 
best,  we  have  yet,  Israel  knew,  to  add  instantly: 
*  Lo  these  are  parts  of  his  ways :  but  how  little 
a  portion  is  heard  of  him!  .  .  .  Canst  thou 
by  searching  find  out  God,  canst  thou  find  out 
the  perfection  of  the  Almighty?  It  is  more  high 
than  heaven,  what  canst  thou  do?  deeper  than 
hell,  what  canst  thou  know?  '  " 

Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
mind.  Thou  shalt  believe  in  Him  as  the  High- 
est Reason  with  all  the  Reason  which  thou  hast 
thyself.  With  no  slightest  word  shalt  thou  cast 
a  slur  upon  what  is  most  god-like  in  man:  too 
much  wilt  thou  fear  the  Nemesis  which  ranks  all 
opponents  or  despisers  of  Reason  with  the  insane. 
Thou  shalt  love  God  as  Reason  with  all  the  serv- 
ice thou  canst  perform,  in  sound  thought,  and 
wise  speech  and  well-considered  action.  Con- 
stant   exercise    in    being    reasonable,   perpetual 


INTELLECTUAL  VIRTUE  15 

strengthening  of  the  power  to  reason  well  and 
clearly,  steadfast  submission  to  intellectual  dis- 
cipline, and  continuous  rational  achievement  in 
the  individual  and  in  the  social  life  —  this  is  true 
service  and  inferior  to  no  other  service  of  the 
God  out  of  whose  mighty  intelligence  our  minds 
came,  and  in  whom  they  subsist. 

"Our  little  systems  have  their  day, 
They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be. 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 
And  Thou  art  mightier,  Lord,  than  they !  " 

In  their  brief  day,  Almighty  God  of  Perfect 
Reason,  Great  Mind  of  the  Universe,  let  their 
dominant  tone  be  Reverence  and  Humility;  so 
shall  we  not  altogether  fail  of  loving  Thee  with 
all  our  mind! 


II 

A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION 

WALTEB  C.  GREEN 


A   DEFINITION   OF   RELIGION 

The  subject  of  my  sermon  is  Religion,  and  I 
take  as  a  text  a  definition  given  by  Harnack, 
"  Religion  is  to  live  in  time  for  eternity,  under 
the  eye  and  with  the  help  of  God." 

These  words  easily  divide  themselves  into  four 
parts.  And  the  first  part  is  to  live.  And  what 
is  it  to  live  or  what  is  life?  We  cannot  easily 
define  it  or  analyse  it,  but  can  simply  say  that  it 
is  something  which  we  find  here,  and  something 
which  we  did  not  and  cannot  create.  We  best 
know  life  in  contrast  with  death.  So  perhaps  we 
may  have  a  better  idea  of  what  life  is  by  asking 
what  is  the  difference  between  the  living  and  the 
dead?  It  is  that  a  living  thing  can  move  itself 
while  a  dead  thing  cannot.  The  dead  body  of 
Daniel  Clarke  would  have  lain  forever  hidden 
from  the  curious  eyes  of  neighbors  if  the  living 
hands  of  Eugene  Aram  had  not  first  touched  it. 
That  dead  thing  of  its  own  accord  would  never 
have  left  the  quiet  pool  of  waters.  This  church 
building  is  a  dead  thing  and  would  stay  in  this 
same  spot  and  be  the  same  a  hundred  years  hence 
were  it  not  for  the  snow  and  the  sun,  the  rain  and 
the  wind.  It  is  an  easy  division  this,  to  divide  the 
universe  into  the  living  and  the  dead. 

And  of  all  forms  of  life  the  highest  type  to  my 
mind  is  man.  For  I  believe  that  in  spite  of  his 
possible  degeneration,  his  occasional  degradation, 
19 


20  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

and  his  unexpected  reversions  to  type,  man  is  at 
the  summit  of  all  created  beings.  Now  what  is 
the  one  quality  that  is  denied  to  his  little  friends 
of  the  air,  as  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi  loved  to  call 
the  birds,  and  to  his  two  noble  companions,  the 
horse  and  the  dog,  that  he  enjoys?  What  one 
element  has  been  put  into  his  makeup  but  has 
been  denied  to  the  beasts  of  the  field  and  the 
fowls  of  the  air?  I  believe  that  is  the  soul. 
Some  animals  like  the  polar  bear  and  the  ele- 
phant may  be  stronger  than  man,  some  like  the 
bloodhound,  may  be  keener  of  scent,  some  like  the 
gull  may  fly  at  an  extremely  fast  rate,  but  none 
of  these  points  of  advantage  can  make  up  for  the 
loss  of  a  soul.  For  I  believe  that  no  animal  has 
the  mental  power  to  grasp  the  idea  of  the  ab- 
stract, or  to  think  those  thoughts  that  wander 
through  eternity.  You  all  remember  the  old 
saying,  there  is  nothing  great  in  the  world  but 
man,  and  that  there  is  nothing  great  in  man  but 
mind,  to  which  I  would  add,  there  is  nothing 
great  in  mind  but  the  moral  and  the  religious 
life. 

You  are  all  familiar  with  the  remark  of  Kant, 
that  the  two  things  that  impressed  him  most  were 
the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  and  the 
moral  law.  And  here  let  me  tell  what  I  believe  to 
be  the  essence  of  the  moral  law.  First,  a  man 
must  know  the  difference  between  the  right  and 
the  wrong.  For  there  are  persons  who  do  not. 
The  idiot  is  not  a  moral  being  because  he  has  an 


A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION        21 

undeveloped  mind.  The  insane  person  is  not  a 
moral  being  because  he  has  lost  for  a  time  the 
power  to  control  his  thoughts.  The  man  with 
senile  dementia  is  not  a  moral  being  because  he 
has  lost  his  mind.  The  newborn  babe  is  not  a 
moral  being  because  its  mind  is  not  yet  developed 
at  all.  But  in  the  lifetime  of  every  boy  or  girl 
there  comes  that  psychological  moment  when  he 
or  she  first  distinguishes  between  the  right  and 
the  wrong,  and  so  becomes  then  and  there  a  moral 
being.  Sooner  or  later  he  or  she  sees  the  differ- 
ence between  the  truth  and  the  falsehood,  between 
deceit  and  frankness.  Your  standard  may  be 
different  from  my  standard,  but  let  us  ever  bear 
in  mind  that  we  each  have  some  standard  of  right 
and  wrong  and  hence  are  moral  beings. 

Secondly,  each  person  must  be  free  to  choose 
either  the  right  or  the  wrong.  We  should  not 
blame  but  rather  pity  the  drunkard  who  has  lost 
all  power  to  refuse  a  drink,  and  can  only  grieve 
at  the  sight  of  an  opium  fiend  unable  to  deny 
himself  the  deadly  but  desired  drug.  The  choice 
must  be  a  real  choice,  whether  it  is  that  of  some 
poor  college  to  accept  tainted  money  or  not, 
whether  it  is  that  of  some  ruined  girl,  to  commit 
suicide  or  to  live  on  in  a  life  of  misery,  or  of 
some  neighbor,  to  repeat  a  bit  of  slander  or  to 
keep  quiet  forever. 

For  my  part  I  believe  that  the  moral  life  is  of 
more  importance  than  the  material  life.  After  a 
man  has  enough  to  eat  and  drink,  a  place  in  which 


22  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

to  sleep,  a  few  changes  of  clothing,  then  the 
claims  of  his  moral  nature  must  be  satisfied.  All 
artistic,  business,  domestic,  intellectual  and  social 
questions  must  be  considered  after  the  moral  side 
has  been  considered.  If  the  choice  come  to  the 
small  tradesman,  to  make  a  profit  of  six  per  cent, 
by  just  a  little  bit  of  misrepresentation  of  his 
goods,  or  of  only  making  five  per  cent.,  let  him 
take  his  five  per  cent.,  but  be  an  honest  man.  If 
the  moral  side  of  a  question  is  not  satisfied,  then 
all  considerations  of  art  and  ease,  social  position 
and  money  income  must  be  put  aside.  Let  us 
then  take  this  word  life,  in  its  moral  aspect,  as  we 
repeat  the  words  of  our  text,  "  Religion  is  to  live 
in  time  for  eternity,  under  the  eye  and  with  the 
help  of  God." 

And  what  is  the  rule  by  which  to  carry  out  the 
moral  law?  The  most  simple  yet  the  most  per- 
fect, one  easy  to  put  into  practice  to-day  and 
good  ten  years  hence;  the  one  that  was  workable 
for  the  old  Jews  and  that  is  still  as  workable  for 
the  Americans  of  to-day,  is  the  Golden  Rule,  to 
treat  our  neighbors  as  we  would  be  treated  by 
them.  It  is  not  needful  that  we  should  be  rich, 
or  know  a  great  deal,  or  read  many  books,  or  live 
in  a  model  town,  or  on  a  certain  street,  or  to 
wear  strange  clothes,  or  for  all  persons  to  live  in 
one  large  house.  All  we  need  is  to  do  as  we 
would  be  done  by.  It  means  that  if  we  were  poor, 
should  we  like  to  have  our  children  work  in  ill- 
ventilated  factories,  and  if  we  are  well  off,  why 


A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION       23 

should  we  want  the  children  of  our  poor  friends 
to  work  in  these  unhealthy  places?  It  means 
that  if  we  want  to  be  treated  with  kindness  and 
courtesy  and  consideration  and  to  have  our  feel- 
ings regarded,  we  should  regard  the  feelings  of 
others.  In  short,  to  do  as  we  would  be  done  by, 
means  that  we  must  make  our  acts  and  our  words 
and  our  gestures,  even  our  very  looks,  such  as  we 
want  to  see  in  our  families  and  friends  and  neigh- 
bors and  even  strangers. 

The  second  part  of  our  text  is  to  live  in  time 
for  eternity.  What  is  the  difference  between  liv- 
ing in  time  and  living  in  eternity?  May  we  not 
say  that  when  we  live  in  eternity  that  we  live  for 
a  longer  time  and  that  we  look  further  ahead? 
For  instance,  what  would  it  mean  if  we  were  told 
by  the  Creator  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  that 
every  city  built  to-day  would  last  for  ten  thou- 
sand years?  Think  of  the  result  that  would  be 
made  in  the  choice  of  building  materials.  For 
like  good  business  men,  we  would  ask  what  mate- 
rial would  last  the  longest ;  cement,  granite,  mar- 
ble or  wood.  We  should  then  go  to  the  pyramids 
of  Egypt,  or  to  the  roads  of  Rome,  or  to  the 
clay  tablets  of  Assyria,  for  materials  that  would 
stand  the  ravages  of  time.  What  would  be  the 
result  if  every  house  and  block  and  theater  were 
built  to  last  for  hundreds  of  years?  Should  we 
not  be  careful  to  have  no  slums,  to  have  abun- 
dance of  light  for  every  room  in  every  tenement, 
to  have  plenty  of  parks  and  playgrounds,  and  to 


24  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

lay  out  the  city  so  that  it  would  be  a  thing  of 
beauty  and  so  that  all  the  buildings  would  har- 
monize into  one?  We  should  want  a  city  that 
would  be  well-paved,  well-lighted,  with  streets 
suitable  for  all  purposes  and  with  a  beautiful 
skyline. 

If  the  conviction  that  our  cities  are  to  live  for- 
ever could  make  this  great  difference  in  our  archi- 
tecture, what  a  greater  difference  would  be  made 
in  our  characters,  should  we  once  believe  that  we 
are  to  live  forever.  We  may  say  that  it  gives  a 
seriousness  to  life.  We  should  be  more  careful 
what  we  did  were  we  obliged  to  remember  it  as 
long  as  we  are  alive.  Let  each  one  feel  that  he 
is  to  live  for  one  hundred  years !  Should  we  not 
then  lay  up  resources  for  our  old  age?  Should 
we  not  ask  whether  the  pleasures  of  the  mind  were 
more  lasting  than  the  pleasures  of  the  body? 
Should  we  not  see  the  folly  of  making  enemies 
and  of  filling  our  minds  with  thoughts  of  unkind- 
ness  and  malice  that  would  be  unpleasant  to  look 
back  upon  in  old  age?  The  conviction  that  each 
man  is  to  live  for  one  hundred  years  would  of  it- 
self change  the  reading  tastes  of  many  persons 
and  might  even  lead  us  to  change  our  trades  and 
professions  and  callings.  For  the  great  thing 
in  old  age  is  to  have  nothing  to  regret.  The 
great  Daniel  Webster,  when  a  happy  boy  at  col- 
lege, if  he  had  known  that  he  would  live  to  be  old 
and  well  known,  would  have  been  more  careful 
about  his  college  life  and  so  would  have  been 


A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION       25 

spared  the  mortification,  when  asked  after  he  was 
famous,  why  he  had  left  college,  of  simply  say- 
ing, "  It  does  not  please  me  to  remember."  If 
the  good  people  of  Pennsylvania,  had  seriously 
thought  how  this  state  was  going  to  go  on  for- 
ever, they  would  not  have  repudiated  their  debts, 
and  would  have  spared  the  inhabitants  of  the 
present  age  the  mortification  that  justly  belongs 
to  all  who  live  in  this  state.  There  is  something 
sad  and  pathetic  in  the  story  of  Jacob,  when  he 
was  asked  by  Pharaoh  how  old  he  was.  For  all 
that  Jacob  replied  was,  "  Few  and  evil  have  been 
the  days  of  the  years  of  my  life."  There  can  be 
few  things  for  old  persons  more  pleasant  than  to 
be  able  to  look  over  a  life  that  is  spent  and  to 
find  nothing  to  regret.  And  so  this  conviction 
that  we  are  to  live  through  childhood,  manhood, 
old  age,  will  deepen  in  us  the  seriousness  of  life 
and  make  us  more  ready  to  adopt  the  principle  of 
never  doing  anything  that  would  make  us 
ashamed  in  later  years. 

And  what  shall  we  say  when  we  ask  about  the 
life  after  death?  I  do  not  want  to  take  the  time 
to  prove  that  there  is  or  that  there  is  not  a  life 
after  death.  I  want  to  point  out  the  advantage 
of  believing  that  we  shall  live  after  death  over  the 
belief  that  we  shall  not  live  after  death.  And 
perhaps  I  can  best  express  this  advantage  by 
saying  that  the  belief  in  life  after  death  gives  a 
grandeur  and  a  sweep  and  a  breadth  and  a  depth 
to  our  lives  here,  and  the  thought  of  which  alone 


26  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

in  itself  is  uplifting.  It  means  that  a  genius  like 
Mozart  has  many  lifetimes  in  which  to  grow  and 
to  increase  in  genius.  It  was  said  that  if  to  make 
the  most  of  one's  abilities  was  to  make  one  happy, 
then  the  painter  Rubens  was  a  very  happy  man, 
because  he  had  made  the  very  most  out  of  his 
natural  gifts.  So  it  is  fine  to  think  that  we  shall 
have  years  without  end  in  which  to  make  the  most 
out  of  all  of  our  natural  gifts  and  abilities,  and 
perhaps  time  in  which  to  have  new  ones  given  to 
us.  It  gives  a  sweep  to  life  such  as  nothing  else 
can  give,  to  feel  that  the  zeal  and  the  self-sac- 
rificing power  of  martyrs  and  philanthropists,  and 
of  preachers  and  of  teachers  is  to  continue.  It 
gives  us  encouragement  to  believe  that  the  zeal  of 
John  Howard  for  the  reform  of  prisons,  the 
power  of  a  Wendell  Phillips,  and  the  persuasive 
power  of  a  Phillips  Brooks  and  the  sweet  influ- 
ence of  a  Horace  Mann  are  so  much  solid  force 
that,  while  no  longer  with  us,  is  to  continue  under 
new  conditions  and  to  bring  forth  good.  Just 
as  Abraham  Lincoln  would  have  done  had  he 
lived  in  the  time  of  George  Washington,  and  as 
George  Washington  would  have  done  had  he 
lived  in  the  time  of  the  civil  war ;  so  both  of  them 
and  many  others  are  doing  good  in  the  world  in 
which  they  are  now. 

We  sometimes  think  of  the  ones  gone  before 
as  being  the  same,  as  when  we  last  saw  them,  and 
never  changing,  but  surely  they  must  live  under 
the  same  law  of  spiritual  growth  as  we  do,  for  the 


A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION      27 

universe  is  one  and  governed  alike.  This  gives 
a  breadth  to  this  life  here  and  now,  because  this 
means  that  we  shall  meet  those  in  the  land  to  come 
who  are  enemies  and  rivals  and  bitter  foes.  For 
if  we  shall  live  in  eternity,  so  must  others,  and  if 
some,  why  not  all,  and  if  all,  why  not  those  who 
hate  us  and  despise  us  and  even  injure  us?  To 
meet  the  hated  and  despised  ones  in  that  unknown 
land  will  be  like  our  going  forth  into  a  fine  ban- 
quet hall  and  being  compelled  to  sit  down  in  the 
presence  of  all,  side  by  side  with  those  hating  us. 
If  this  be  true,  surely  it  were  wise  to  make  good 
friends  of  our  enemies,  and  to  make  few,  and 
better  yet,  none,  in  the  days  to  come. 

And  this  same  belief  that  we  are  to  be  the  chil- 
dren of  continuous  time  gives  a  depth  to  some  of 
our  earthly  feelings  and  affections  that  no  other 
belief  can  give.  Few  convictions  need  to  be  more 
carefully  taught  to  children,  need  to  be  more  per- 
sistently cherished,  and  can  give  greater  satis- 
faction than  this,  that  we  are  to  mingle  with  those 
who  have  passed  on.  Unless  we  are  to  mingle 
with  those  who  have  solved  the  great  mystery  of 
life,  the  time  will  never  come,  of  which  the  poet 
spoke, 

"  Where  the  love  that  here  we  lavish, 
On  the  withering  leaves  of  time, 

Shall  have  fadeless  flowers  to  fix  on, 
In  an  ever  spring-bright  clime. 

There  we  find  the  joy  of  loving, 
As  we  never  loved  before, 


28  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

Loving  on,  unchilled,  unhindered, 
Loving  once,  and  forever  more." 

Religion  has,  I  believe,  lost  some  of  its  stirring 
power,  because  it  does  not  lead  men  and  women 
to  feel  that  they  are  to  live  through  years  that 
have  no  limit,  and  because  it  has  failed  to  insist 
that  death  is  only  a  doorway  between  the  living 
and  the  dead.  Some  of  us  once  thought  of  the 
dead  as  living  one  kind  of  life  and  ourselves  as 
living  another.  Rather  let  us  grasp  the  idea  of 
the  hymn,  written  by  Charles  Wesley, 

"  The  saints  on  earth  and  those  above, 
But  one  communion  make, 
Joined  to  their  Lord  in  bonds  of  love, 
All  of  his  grace  partake." 

What  an  inspiring  thought  that  some  time  all 
the  limitations  of  age  and  color  and  family  and 
friendship  and  nationality  and  sex  shall  vanish, 
and  that  we  all  shall  see  each  other  and  ourselves 
as  we  are  now  seen  by  the  Creator  of  Space  and 
the  Source  of  Time!  It  means  that  the  whole 
human  race,  past,  present  and  future,  is  all  one, 
and  that  death  is  but  a  gateway. 

One  family  we  dwell  in  him, 
One  church  above,  beneath, 

Though  now  divided  by  the  stream, 
The  narrow  stream  of  death. 

One  army  of  the  living  God, 
To  his  commands  we  bow, 


A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION       29 

Part  of  the  host  have  crossed  before, 
And  part  are  crossing  now. 

We  know  that  we  are  all  amounts  of  energy, 
and  as  we  believe  in  the  conservation  of  all  en- 
ergy in  the  physical  world,  so  the  time  is  coming 
when  we  shall  believe  in  the  conservation  of  all 
energy,  human  and  spiritual,  physical  and  men- 
tal, angelical  and  divine.  This  belief  in  the  con- 
tinued personal  identity  can  alone  explain  why 
we  have  certain  longings  and  aspirations  which 
here  can  never  reach  their  fulfilment,  but  require 
an  endless  opportunity.  The  belief  in  immortal- 
ity is  an  instinct  deep  rooted  that  will  never  die. 
In  short,  I  believe  that  if  the  whole  civilized  world 
were  to  try  to  teach  their  children  that  there  is 
no  life  beyond  the  grave,  still  this  deepseated  and 
divinely  planted  instinct  would  assert  itself,  and 
the  coming  generations  would  soon  believe  with 
all  fervor  and  with  an  unshakable  zeal  that  they 
were  to  live  forever  in  time  and  forever  in 
eternity. 

But  some  one  may  say,  cannot  the  atheist  live 
this  same  kind  of  a  life?  I  am  willing  to  admit 
that  it  is  possible,  but  not  so  probable.  Nay,  I 
believe  that  it  is  harder  for  the  atheist  than  for 
the  believer  in  a  god.  In  the  same  way,  I  believe 
that  there  cannot  be  any  religion  without  a  god. 
This  is  the  next  point  to  be  covered  in  the  defini- 
tion of  Harnack,  "  Religion  is  to  live  in  time  for 


30  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

eternity,  under  the  eye  and  with  the  help  of 
God." 

Sooner  or  later  every  serious  thinking  person 
faces  the  question,  Is  there  a  God?  and  do  I  be- 
lieve in  him?  Some  fortunate  persons  have  been 
so  brought  up  that  they  say  without  stopping, 
I  do.  But  many  others,  less  fortunate,  have  been 
moved  by  agnostic  influences  and  atheistic  tend- 
encies and  are  in  doubt.  Suffice  for  the  present 
by  the  word  God,  we  mean  that  power  that  is  out- 
side of  us,  that  is  behind  and  within  the  world. 
We  may  believe  that  He  is  pure  spirit,  or,  like 
the  theologians  of  old,  we  may  give  Him  the  attri- 
butes of  omnipresence,  omnipotence  and  omnis- 
cience, or  we  may  simply  feel  that  He  is  the 
heavenly  father,  or  a  good  shepherd,  or  a 
kind  king,  or  the  absolute  judge,  or  the  great 
forgiver. 

While  I  may  admit  that  the  atheist  may  be  as 
kind  a  neighbor  and  as  honest  a  business  man  as 
the  believer  in  God,  yet  I  do  firmly  believe,  all 
things  being  taken  into  account,  that  there  will 
be  found  more  sweetness  and  kindness  and  love- 
ableness  among  those  believing  in  God  than 
among  those  who  do  not.  The  believer  lives  in  a 
world  of  two  dimensions,  if  we  may  use  the  term. 
He  sees  and  feels  and  knows  that  above  and  be- 
hind and  within  and  underneath  this  world  is  an- 
other mind,  of  the  same  kind  as  his  own,  though 
infinite  in  makeup.  The  atheist  is  like  a  moun- 
tain  climber,   cold  and  hungry  and  lonely   and 


A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION       31 

tired,  coming  upon  some  house  in  which  he  can 
pass  the  night  in  peace  and  comfort.  He  would 
be  a  strange  traveler  who  never  asked  who  put  the 
house  there,  and  he  would  be  also  an  ungracious 
traveler  who  did  not  leave  it  in  fairly  good  shape 
for  the  next  person  who  was  cold  and  hungry 
and  lonely  and  tired.  To  the  atheist  must  it  not 
seem  strange  that  questions  of  why  and  whence 
and  whither  should  daily  arise,  and  must  it  not 
seem  a  queer  thing  that  there  is  not  a  savage  tribe 
but  believes  in  some  kind  of  a  god,  however  low 
or  degraded?  To  the  atheist  the  feelings  of 
reverence  and  adoration  and  awe  and  worship 
which  he  sees  in  others  must  seem  queer  and  mean- 
ingless. I  believe  that  were  children  left  alone 
to  themselves,  like  Paul  and  Virginia,  they  would 
soon  come  to  feel  that  there  was  a  larger  life  out- 
side of  themselves  and  including  themselves. 
Like  the  two  children  in  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's 
The  New  Adam  and  Eve,  they  would  feel  by  in- 
stinct, without  knowing  why,  what  emotions  a 
beautiful  cathedral  was  built  to  express,  or  gaz- 
ing upon  the  storm  at  sea,  would  feel  the  gran- 
deur of  the  power  behind  the  storm,  or  looking  at 
the  grand  canons  of  Colorado,  would  have  feel- 
ings of  awe.  What  carpenter  building  a  house  for 
himself  in  some  pioneer  country  does  not  feel  at 
times  that  this  earth  is  but  a  larger  house  built 
by  some  giant  hand,  or  what  mother,  watching 
the  daily  growth  of  her  first  child,  does  not  now 
and  then  feel  that  she  herself  is  but  a  child  of  the 


/ 


32  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

Infinite  Mother !  Do  we  not  feel  that  it  is  natu- 
ral for  man  to  believe  in  a  god  and  that  he  needs 
God  as  much  as  he  needs  air  to  breathe  and  water 
to  eat?  God  and  man  are  thus  bound  together, 
each  needing  the  other  and  each  lacking  some- 
thing without  the  other.  What  a  lonely  world 
this  would  be  if  there  were  no  God,  and  what  a 
lonely  being  God  would  be  were  there  no  human 
beings  of  divine  origin,  human  limitations,  and 
great  possibilities ! 

But  after  a  man  has  said,  I  believe  in  God,  the 
next  and  most  important  question  comes  up,  In 
what  kind  of  a  god  do  I  believe?  Time  does  not 
permit  us  to  examine  all  the  attributes  of  deity, 
but  let  us  look  at  the  one  suggested  by  this  defini- 
tion of  Harnack,  "  Religion  is  to  live  in  time,  un- 
der the  eye  and  with  the  help  of  God."  We 
may  have  heard  these  words  so  often  and 
have  read  them  so  often  that  they  have  at 
first  but  little  meaning  for  us.  The  eye  of  God! 
What  sins  would  we  not  avoid  were  we  to  feel  for 
one  single  second  that  the  eye  of  God  was  upon 
us !  The  start  we  give  when  we  think  we  are 
alone,  but  find  some  one  is  with  us,  typifies  in  a 
slight  degree  the  complete  conversion  that  can 
come  upon  a  man  when  he  realizes  that  God  sees 
everything  that  he  does.  How  ashamed  we 
should  be  if  all  at  once  all  our  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings were  known  to  those  who  are  about  us. 
What  emotions  of  hate  and  revenge  and  jealousy 
would  at  once  go  from  our  minds  were  they  seen 


A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION        33 

by  our  friends !  What  shudders  come  upon  us  at 
times  in  the  lands  of  dreams  when  we  have  those 
frightful  thoughts,  which  we  dare  not  think 
again,  which  are  the  creatures  of  a  fevered  im- 
agination, which  we  feel  in  our  better  moments 
are  not  a  part  of  ourselves  and  for  which  we  will 
not  feel  responsible.  And  yet  this  feeling  would 
be  mild  compared  to  those  feelings  if  our  friends 
and  loved  ones  were  to  know  our  innermost 
thoughts  and  wishes.  And  yet  God  sees  them  all 
before  they  come.  With  God  we  must  think  of 
One  to  whom  the  past  and  present  and  future  are 
all  one  and  the  same,  and  for  whom  Time  does 
not  exist  when  He  reads  the  motives  and  wishes  of 
His  children. 

And  if  Time  vanishes  under  the  all-seeing  eye 
of  God,  so  must  space.  We  may  have  some  idea 
of  what  it  means  to  live  under  the  all-seeing  eye 
of  God,  if  we  take  the  analogy  of  the  Roman  citi- 
zen banished  from  the  Roman  empire  in  the 
golden  age  of  the  Emperor  Augustus.  The  whole 
civilized  world  was  under  Roman  rule,  and  when 
once  the  unfortunate  citizen  was  banished  from 
the  eternal  city,  he  had  to  go  out  among  the  bar- 
barians of  the  north,  or  the  uncivilized  races  of 
South  Africa,  or  away  among  the  unknown  tribes 
of  the  east.  We  can  believe  that  in  some  cases 
death  was  preferred  to  banishment.  For  if  ever 
the  man  should  try  to  return,  the  Roman  centu- 
rion waited  for  him  either  at  the  Euphrates 
River,  or  at  the  Cataracts  of  the  Nile,  or  at  the 


34  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

borders  of  the  Black  Sea.  So  would  it  be  were 
we  to  try  to  banish  ourselves  from  the  sight  of 
God.  For  He  is  everywhere.  He  sees  all  things 
at  once,  both  cause  and  effect,  rest  and  motion, 
change  and  decay. 

Some  of  you  may  have  read  years  ago  that 
little  old  pamphlet  called  the  Stars  and  the  Uni- 
verse, wherein  the  author  showed  how  in  an  in- 
finite lens  all  the  rays  of  light  crossed  at  one 
point  and  how  all  the  images  might  shrink  until 
the  whole  universe  would  be  condensed  into  one 
minute  point,  and  this  one  point,  the  smallest  con- 
ceivable point,  would  still  contain  the  universe, 
and  thus  the  all-seeing  eye  of  God  would  become 
a  physical  and  literal  possibility.  It  was  a  fine 
idea  and  well  worked  out,  and  showed  how  to  the 
Infinite  One  both  time  and  space  were  not 
necessary. 

Perhaps  we  of  to-day  would  be  more  helped 
toward  a  belief  in  the  physical  all-seeing  eye  of 
the  Ancient  of  Days  by  thinking  of  the  X-rays. 
Surely  if  finite  beings  can  look  through  a  purse 
and  see  the  coins  inside  of  it,  why  should  we 
hesitate  to  believe  that  the  Infinite  and  Absolute 
One  sees  all  things,  hidden  and  open? 

But  after  all  it  is  not  the  physical  all-seeing 
eye  of  God  that  should  interest  us,  but  rather  the 
spiritual  all-seeing  eye.  For  we  must  think  that 
God  sees  all  things  as  we  see  an  image  in  the 
mind's  eye.  And  what  comfort  there  is  in  this 
conviction  that  all  our  thoughts  are  seen  by  Him 


A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION      35 

who  inhabiteth  eternity.  What  a  steadiness  of 
nerve  and  irresistible  flood  of  moral  enthusiasm 
this  must  have  brought  to  the  New  England 
worker  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  as  he  felt  that 
he  was  right,  and  could  cry  out,  "  One  with  God 
is  a  majority."  It  was  this  conviction  that  she 
was  under  the  all-seeing  eye  of  God  that  enabled 
the  Scottish  maiden,  fastened  to  the  stake  at  low 
tide,  to  sing  the  praises  of  her  Creator,  as  she  felt 
the  tide  was  coming  in  upon  her.  It  was  said 
that  the  secret  of  the  success  of  the  great  Napo- 
leon was  that  he  could  make  every  soldier  feel 
that  he  was  carrying  a  marshal's  baton  in  his 
knapsack,  and  that  if  he  did  his  duty,  the  cross 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor  was  his,  and  fame  and 
rank  and  glory  were  before  him.  So  the  true  sol- 
dier of  God  feels  that  the  eye  of  God  is  upon  him, 
and  that  no  task  can  be  too  great  and  that  no 
temptation  can  be  too  hard  to  bear. 

These  words,  "  under  the  eye  of  God,"  will  of 
course  suggest  different  things  to  different  per- 
sons, according  to  the  profession  they  follow. 
To  the  physician  they  may  suggest  that  God  is 
an  infinite  physician,  to  whom  all  diseases  and 
sicknesses  and  the  frame  of  man  are  perfectly 
known,  and  who  alone  can  cure  all  ills  of  body 
and  soul,  head  and  heart,  flesh  and  spirit.  To  the 
lover  of  knowledge,  these  few  words  suggest  that 
God  knows  all  languages,  all  tongues,  all  subjects, 
all  books,  even  those  yet  to  be  written.  To  the 
scientist  looking  at  the  fishes   in   an   aquarium, 


36  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

watching   and   studying   their   variety,   both   of 
color,  size,  shape  and  beauty  and  even  ugliness, 
there  would  come  the  thought  that  to  the  Omnis- 
cient One  all  these  things  have  a  distinct  purpose, 
and  that  to  him  there  is  no  problem  of  origin 
of   species   and  variations.     To   the   astronomer 
looking  upon  the  stars,  millions  upon  millions, 
innumerable  by  numbers  that  have  a  name,  there 
would  come  the  conclusion  that  under  the  all- 
seeing  eye  of  Him  who  is  without  variableness  or 
shadow  cast  by  turning  these  planets  and  stars 
and  suns  and  universes  at  each  and  every  mo- 
ment represent  a  distinct  thought  of  God,  even 
as   the  pages   of  the  Bible  tell   of   Elijah  and 
Elisha.      To   the  lawyer,  the   all-seeing   eye   of 
God  would  suggest,  what  is  the  hope  and  yet  the 
unattainable  aim  of  man,  a  perfect  jury  and  a 
perfect  judge.     To  some  railroad  engineer,  these 
five  words  would  suggest  that  each  man  was  like 
a  train,  with  records  kept  at  some  gigantic  head- 
quarters,   some   infinite   train-despatcher's    office. 
There  all  is  put  down  in  black  and  white,  there 
the  man  of  industry  is  like  the  train  always  on 
time,  the  young  man,  ruining  his  life  with  drink, 
like  the  train  wrecked  and  off  the  track,  while  the 
man  with  great  gifts,  which  he  has  neglected, 
is  like  a  train,  snowbound,  overcome  and  useless 
in  the  drifts  of  indolence  and  moral  weakness. 

But  in  this  analogy  of  the  train,  let  us  remem- 
ber that  the  engineer  is  not  only  under  the  eye  of 
the  train-despatcher,  but  that  at  any  moment  he 


A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION       37 

may  receive  warning  of  dangers,  with  orders  to 
obey.  So  it  is  with  us,  and  this  leads  us  to  the 
last  part  of  this  definition  of  religion,  given  by 
Harnack,  "  Religion  is  to  live  in  time  for  eter- 
nity, under  the  eye  and  with  the  help  of  God." 

For  this  is  the  greatest  possible  conviction 
that  can  ever  come  to  any  human  being  —  that 
he  is  living  with  the  help  of  God.  God  not  only 
sees  the  martyr  Ridley,  burning  at  the  stake,  but 
can  help  him  bear  those  flames.  God  not  only 
saw  the  Jesuit  missionary  being  tortured  by  the 
North  American  Indians,  but  could  cause  him  to 
rejoice  in  his  tortures  for  the  glory  of  God.  And 
God  alone  can  sustain  a  poor  and  lonely  mother 
left  with  her  children  to  support.  God  is  some- 
thing more  than  an  all-seeing  eye  to  the  moral 
reformers,  wearing  out  body  and  soul,  in  almost 
hopeless  struggle  with  the  wrong,  but  with  the 
conviction  and  a  zeal  that  their  fellow-perse- 
cutors might  well  envy. 

This  conviction  that  we  are  to  live  with  the 
help  of  God,  is  the  crowning  glory  of  religion, 
and  leads  us  to  answer  the  last  question,  how  may 
God  help  us? 

I  believe  that  God  may  help  us  in  different 
ways.  He  may  help  us  when  He  speaks  through 
the  voice  of  conscience,  as  when  the  mother  of 
Theodore  Parker  said  to  him  — "  Some  men  call 
it  conscience ;  but  I  prefer  to  call  it  the  voice  of 
God  in  the  soul  of  man.  If  you  listen  and  obey 
it,  then  it  will  speak  clearer  and  clearer  and  al- 


38  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

ways  guide  you  right ;  but  if  you  turn  a  deaf  ear 
or  disobey,  then  it  will  fade  out  little  by  little, 
and  leave  you  all  in  the  dark  and  without  a  guide. 
Your  life  depends  on  your  heeding  this  little 
voice." 

God  may  help  us  when  we  insist  upon  speak- 
ing the  whole  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  no 
matter  what  may  happen,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Persian  — 

"  Ottaya  from  his  earliest  youth, 
Was  consecrated  to  the  truth, 
And  if  the  universe  must  die, 
Unless  Ottaya  told  a  lie, 
He  would  defy  the  fate's  last  crash 
And  let  all  sink  to  one  pale  ash, 
Or  ever  from  his  truthful  tongue 
One  word  of  falsehood  should  be  wrung." 

God  helps  us  when  we  persist  in  obeying  those 
deepseated  feelings  of  innate  goodness,  and  when 
we  demand  that  what  is  imperfect  in  us  must  not 
be  held  to  be  perfect  in  Him.  As  the  poet  Whit- 
tier  said : 

"  Not  mine  to  look  where  cherubim, 
And  seraphs  may  not  see, 
But  nothing  can  be  good  in  Him 
Which  evil  is  in  me. 

The  wrong  that  pains  my  soul  below 

I  dare  not  throne  above, 
I  know  not  of  His  hate  —  I  know 

His  goodness  and  His  love." 


A  DEFINITION  OF  RELIGION       39 

God  helps  us  when  we  read  inspiring  passages 
in  great  books,  like  the  gem  of  Saint  Paul's  writ- 
ings, the  thirteenth  chapter  of  First  Corinthians 
— "  Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and 
of  angels,  and  have  not  love,  I  am  become  as 
sounding  brass  or  a  clanging  cymbal." 

The  beauty  and  essence  of  this  help  from 
God  is  that  it  may  be  direct.  The  traveler  ship- 
wrecked upon  a  lonely  island,  or  the  reformer  in 
the  Russian  cell,  can  receive  that  help  as  quickly 
as  a  worshiper  in  some  Gothic  cathedral.  The 
repentant  woman,  cast  out  by  the  world,  alone 
and  deserted,  may  receive  that  help  as  soon  as  her 
happier  sister  in  the  gay  Easter  service,  and  may 
even  say,  like  Hagar  of  old,  "  Because  the  Lord 
hath  heard  my  affliction." 

We  need  no  priest  nor  minister,  though  they 
be  saintly  men,  for  each  one  of  us  may  be  his 
own  priest,  and  at  any  moment,  inside  or  outside 
of  the  church,  may  say  in  all  sincerity  that  sim- 
plest prayer  of  all  simple  prayers,  the  shortest 
and  yet  the  most  acceptable^  "  God  be  merciful  to 
me,  a  sinner."  There  is  no  need  of  an  elaborate 
ritual,  for  it  may  be  that  we  shall  be  alone  and  in 
a  strange  land,  when,  like  the  Prodigal  Son,  we 
come  to  ourselves. 

And  in  answering  this  last  question  of  all  ques- 
tions, How  God  helps  us,  let  us  cast  away  all  sec- 
tarian narrowness,  all  personal  prejudice,  and  all 
denominational  illusion,  and  see  that  God  helps 
each  one  in  a  different  way.    As  has  been  well  said, 


40  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

no  one  church  has  a  monopoly  of  the  holy  spirit. 
The  saying  of  a  beautiful  and  hallowed  ritual  may 
have  an  irresistible  uplift  for  him  who  has  been 
brought  up  within  its  traditions,  while  the  jan- 
gling tune  of  a  Salvation  Army  song  may  lead 
some  tramp  to  seek  light,  who  would  be  entirely 
unaffected  by  the  most  beautiful  ritual  that  man 
may  compose.  And  the  words  of  the  first  hymn 
we  learned  in  our  innocent  childhood  days  at  our 
mother's  knee  may  yet  awaken  in  us  the  expul- 
sive power  of  a  new  affection. 

I  believe  in  conclusion  that  the  highest  way  in 
which  God  helps  us  is  when  He  speaks  to  us 
through  some  personality.  When  we  look  at  the 
self-sacrificing  love  of  the  one  who  bore  us,  or 
remember  the  upright  life  of  him  whose  name  we 
bear,  or  think  of  some  noble  friend  who  has 
helped  us,  or  think  of  how  our  life  is  sweetened 
by  the  daily  companionship  of  some  unselfish  lov- 
ing consort,  or  think  of  some  elder  brother,  like 
the  Man  of  Galilee,  then  do  we  receive  the  great- 
est help  from  God,  and  understand  best  what  it 
means  to  live  with  Him.  And  then,  remembering 
how  we  have  received  so  great  a  gift  from  those 
who  have  gone  before,  our  respect  to  them,  and 
our  thankfulness  to  God,  demand  that  we  trans- 
mit this  gift  of  all  gifts  to  others,  not  only  un- 
tarnished, but  made  more  inspiring  to  those  yet 
to  come. 


Ill 

UNIVERSALITY  OF  THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS SENTIMENT 

GEOEGE  L.  CARY 


UNIVERSALITY     OF     THE     RELIGIOUS 
SENTIMENT 

What  we  are  so  fond  of  saying,  that  no  two 
men  are  alike,  is  no  more  true  than  its  exact  op- 
posite, that  no  two  men  are  different.  The  like- 
ness both  mental  and  physical  between  men  is 
fundamental  and  permanent;  the  differences, 
however  obtrusive  they  may  be,  are  accidental 
and  to  a  great  extent  shifting  and  transient. 
That  a  man  is  a  man  gives  perfect  assurance  of 
his  possessing  every  distinctive  attribute  of  hu- 
manity. Completely  lacking  but  one  such  char- 
acteristic, he  would  be  either  a  brute  or  some- 
thing between  brute  and  man;  gaining  but  one 
altogether  new  power,  he  would  be  an  angel  of 
some  degree.  Once  determine  by  an  exact  anal- 
ysis what  are  all  the  essentially  different  ways  in 
which  the  mind  of  man  can  display  its  activity, 
and  the  sum  of  the  powers  thus  manifested  must 
be  considered  as  constituting  universal  human 
nature.  It  is  on  this  account,  as  well  as  others, 
and  in  a  unique  sense,  that  man  can  fitly  be  called 
a  microcosm  —  a  little  universe,  there  being  in 
every  man  all  the  possibilities  of  the  race. 

But  this  homogeneity,  this  absolute  oneness 
of  constitution,  is  no  special  characteristic  of 
humanity ;  it  is  the  law  of  all  created  things  after 
their  several  kinds.  Every  particle  of  gold  has 
all  the  essential  qualities  of  every  other  particle; 
43 


44  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

every  ounce  of  water  is  always  just  so  much  hy- 
drogen and  oxygen,  never  more  nor  less  of  these, 
and  never,  by  any  possibility,  anything  else;  ev- 
ery form  of  animal  and  vegetable  life  has  its  own 
unvarying  constitution,  fixed  forever  by  the  law 
to  which  it  owes  its  existence.  This  is,  in  brief, 
a  universe  of  kinds,  or,  stated  more  con- 
cretely, of  kinds  of  things,  and  not,  primarily, 
of  individuals  infinitely  diverse.  Not  other- 
wise than  thus  is  it  conceivable  that  a  world 
of  life  and  order  could  exist.  Isolation  is  death, 
and  the  possibility  of  a  human  life  such  as  we 
now  live  is  dependent  upon  the  actuality  of  a 
human  nature  which  knows  no  variation  except 
within  the  comparatively  narrow  limits  of  unes- 
sential forms.1 

If  the  essential  principles  of  the  doctrine 
which  we  are  presenting  are  not  universally  ac- 
cepted, it  is  partly  at  least  because  of  a  failure 
to  discriminate  between  what  is  actual  and  what 
only  potential  in  man,  or  between  a  weak  and 
unobtrusive  and  a  full  and  strong  manifestation 
of  a  power.  Thus  a  man  is  often  said  to  have 
no  ear  for  music,  who  is  merely  unable  to  enjoy 
its  more  complex  forms ;  or  to  have  no  voice  for 
singing,  when  he  has  never  made  any  serious  ef- 
fort to  train  the  vocal  powers  which  he  has  pos- 
sessed from  infancy.     Sometimes  one  denies  to 

i  Plato  held  that  of  every  created  thing  there  is  an 
image  or  prototype  or  "  idea "  in  the  Divine  mind,  and 
that  these  are  the  only  permanent  realities. 


RELIGIOUS  SENTIMENT  45 

others  the  possession  of  the  ability  which  he  him- 
self lacks  or  seems  to  lack ;  as  when  a  person  who 
delights  only  in  simple  melodies  declares  that  it 
shows  affectation  to  <ilaim  to  enjoy  the  more  va- 
ried and  elaborate  music  of  the  oratorio  or  the 
opera.  There  are  a  few  people,  having  some 
pretension  to  sound  judgment  in  general,  who 
speak  with  the  utmost  disdain  of  the  old  master- 
pieces of  pictorial  art,  and  a  considerable  multi- 
tude who  really  derive  from  these  works  no  true 
enjoyment;  but  such  inconsiderately  set  up  their 
own  immaturity  as  a  standard  by  which  to  judge 
the  full-grown,  when  they  declare  that  the 
beauty  which  they  do  not  see  has  no  real  exis- 
tence. It  is  one  of  the  most  striking  character- 
istics of  ignorance  and  inexperience  that  they 
imagine  the  world  to  be  bounded  by  their  own 
narrow  horizon.  If  the  sightless  fishes  of  the 
Mammoth  Cave  were  possessed  of  powers  of  rea- 
soning analogous  to  our  own,  they  would  be  in 
great  danger  of  judging  that  those  of  their  tribe 
living  in  other  waters  were  altogether  endowed 
and  circumstanced  like  themselves.  And  yet 
these  blind  cave-dwellers  have  rudimentary  or- 
gans of  vision,  either  never  developed  or  now 
atrophied  through  lack  of  use.  In  a  stream 
whose  depths  were  pierced  by  the  sunlight,  their 
disability  might  sometime  disappear.  In  na- 
ture's plan,  every  organ,  whether  of  body  or 
mind,  begins  to  exist  in  advance  of  a  demand 
for  its  use.     We  are  not  questioning  now  what 


46  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

was  the  origin  of  nature  herself;  we  are  only 
declaring  her  present  workings.  The  delicate 
cell-tissue  of  the  lungs  of  the  unborn  babe  un- 
consciously anticipates  the  incoming  breath  of 
life;  the  eye  blindly  prepares  its  camera  for 
forms  and  tints  and  shades  of  whose  beauty  the 
yet  sleeping  soul  dreams  not;  the  chambered  ear 
prepares  to  receive  the  music  of  nature's  choral, 
when  as  yet  no  wave  of  sound  has  vibrated 
through  its  winding  passages  and  empty  halls. 

And  so  it  is  with  man's  higher  powers.  Only 
by  slow  degrees  does  the  soul  come  to  full  self- 
consciousness.  "  First  the  blade,  then  the  ear, 
then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear."  The  physical 
and  even  the  mental  development  of  childhood 
into  manhood  is  a  patent  enough  fact;  it  is  the 
possible  fulness  of  the  expansion  of  the  soul 
which  few  —  we  must  even  say  none  —  ade- 
quately comprehend.  We  read  Paul's  confes- 
sion, "  When  I  was  a  child,  I  spake  as  a  child, 
I  felt  as  a  child,  I  thought  as  a  child;  now  that 
I  am  become  a  man,  I  have  put  away  childish 
things,"  comprehending  imperfectly  enough  both 
the  kind  and  the  degree  of  the  change  to  which 
he  wished  to  testify.  "  Arrested  development  "  is 
the  phrase  which,  better  than  any  other,  de- 
scribes the  condition  of  the  vast  majority  of  men. 
The  old  adage,  "  Men  are  but  children  of  a 
larger  growth,"  is  more  seriously  true  to  the  fact 
than  we  are  wont  to  realize.  Men  in  stature 
and  in  years,  we  are  content  to  be  children  in 


RELIGIOUS  SENTIMENT  47 

many  of  the  characteristics  of  complete  manhood. 
We  pity  him  who,  from  accident  of  birth  or  some 
untoward  circumstance  in  life,  lacks  the  full  phys- 
ical endowment  of  manhood;  while,  at  the  same 
time,  we  are  so  heedless  of  our  own  condition  as 
to  take  little  thought  for  the  culture  of  those 
higher  powers  which,  more  truly  than  in  the  case 
of  the  bodily  faculties,  no  mere  undirected  vege- 
tative growth  can  ever  bring  to  their  due  perfec- 
tion. 

If  the  truth  of  these  two  related  affirmations 
has  been  sufficiently  established,  namely,  that 
whatever  elementary  powers  are  manifested  in  any 
man  are  a  part  of  the  endowment  of  the  race,  and 
consequently  that  no  man  altogether  lacks  any 
such  power  which  is  possessed  by  any  other  man, 
then  we  are  prepared  for  this  corollary,  that, 
granting  the  religious  sentiment  to  be  both 
unique  and  non-composite  and  therefore  inca- 
pable of  resolution  into  simpler  elements,  it  must 
be  held  to  be  universal,  whether  universally  mani- 
fested in  a  recognizable  form  or  not.  Here 
again  we  waive,  as  unnecessary,  the  question  of 
origin  and  derivation,  discussed  in  our  day  with 
such  a  wealth  of  theory  and  such  a  dearth  of  well- 
digested  facts,  and  rest  in  the  testimony  of  the 
developed  consciousness  to  the  existence  of  a  re- 
ligious faculty  in  man.  This  fact,  moreover, 
may  be  sufficiently  proved  historically;  since  the 
negative  testimony  of  those  few  Christian  trav- 
elers in  the  earth's  darkest  corners,  who  declare 


48  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

that  they  have  met  with  races  altogether  devoid 
of  the  religious  instinct,  counts  as  nothing 
against  otherwise  universal  experience,  especially 
considering  how  unfit  these  observers  have  often 
been  to  recognize  devotion  in  strange  and  unfa- 
miliar forms.  Not  thus  blind  was  the  clear-eyed 
Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  when  he  declared  at  Athens 
that  God  "  made  of  one  every  nation  of  men," — 
not  of  "  one  blood,"  as  some  well  intentioned  in- 
terpolator, failing  to  grasp  the  apostle's  idea  of 
a  moral  unity,  and  apparently  not  comprehend- 
ing the  abstract  form  of  statement,  makes  the 
passage  to  read  in  the  version  with  which  we  are 
most  familiar. 

The  present  century  is  witnessing  a  remark- 
able transformation.  Our  forefathers,  inherit- 
ing that  Hebrew  lack  of  discrimination  which  rec- 
ognized no  degrees  between  highest  and  lowest 
but  made  everything  to  be  either  all  good  or  all 
bad,  divided  the  religions  of  the  world  into  two 
sole  classes  —  the  true  and  the  false,  in  the  for- 
mer including  only  Judaism  and  Christianity. 
Some  of  the  early  Christian  fathers,  with  an  evi- 
dent sense  of  the  injustice  of  excluding  from 
the  kingdom  of  God  the  Athenian  Socrates  and 
his  like,  and  yet  not  daring  to  break  down  alto- 
gether the  hitherto  fixed  barrier  between  true 
and  false  religion,  with  charming  illogicalness 
claimed  that  these  pagan  saints  were  real  Chris- 
tians. It  has  been  left  for  our  own  time  to  ap- 
proximate, however  imperfectly,  to  a  realization 


RELIGIOUS  SENTIMENT  49 

of  the  truth  that  in  no  age  or  clime  has  God  left 
himself  without  a  true  witness  in  the  heart  of 
man. 

Two  errors  have  lain  at  the  foundation  of  the 
condemnation  as  false  of  all  religions  but  one 
(for  Judaism  and  Christianity  have  been  looked 
upon  as  virtually  one),  the  confusion  of  re- 
ligion and  theology,  and  the  ignoring  of  the  nec- 
essary imperfection  of  every  human  conception 
of  the  divine  and  the  consequent  inevitable  di- 
versity of  the  forms  of  religious  thought. 
While  there  is  really  but  one  religion,  there  are 
as  many  theologies  as  there  are  thinking  and 
reasoning  beings.  Religion  is  the  life-blood  of 
theology,  the  latter  being,  as  it  were,  only  the 
system  of  arteries  and  veins  through  which 
the  vital  current  courses  on  its  way  to  and  from 
the  beating  heart.  Some  theology  there  must  be 
to  furnish  a  channel  for  these  tides  of  devout 
feeling;  but  the  stream  and  the  channel  are  not 
one.  Neither  is  it  of  the  first  importance  of 
what  sort  the  channel  may  be,  so  that  it  carries 
with  some  degree  of  safety  what  is  committed  to 
it.  Theologies  may  be  very  imperfect  and  yet 
quite  well  worth  the  having  for  those  who  as  yet 
are  fit  to  make  use  of  nothing  better.  The  soul 
of  truth  in  things  accounted  false  should  save 
from  our  scorn  the  mean  and  tawdry  shrine 
which  the  owner  of  the  jewel  within  knew  not 
how  to  replace  with  a  worthier  casket. 

Great  as   is  the  present  activity  of  religious 


50  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

thought  in  many  directions,  no  department  of 
theological  learning  is  making  more  rapid  ad- 
vances than  that  of  the  comparative  study  of 
religions.  It  marks  a  most  striking  change  of 
attitude  on  the  part  of  the  teachers  of  Chris- 
tianity, that  so  many  schools  of  preparation  for 
the  ministry  have  of  late  deemed  it  necessary  to 
introduce  into  their  course  of  theological  instruc- 
tion a  more  or  less  thorough  and  sympathetic 
treatment  of  all  the  leading  forms  of  non-Chris- 
tian faith.  Eminent  Christian  scholars,  too, 
think  it  not  unworthy  of  them  to  devote  their 
lives  to  the  revival  and  popularization  of  the  old 
religious  literature  of  the  East,  with  a  zeal  no 
less  ardent  than  that  which  has  prompted  others 
to  the  exclusive  study  of  their  own  sacred  scrip- 
tures. No  library  of  theology  is  to-day  consid- 
ered adequately  furnished  which  does  not  give 
ample  place  upon  its  shelves  to  the  remains  of 
those  literatures  which  have  embalmed  for  us 
the  noblest  religious  thoughts  of  centuries  dim 
with  age  when  Christianity  was  born.  It  is  a 
fact  of  no  small  significance  that  the  only  pub- 
lished work  of  one  of  the  most  popular  of  our 
American  theologians  for  which  there  has  been  a 
remunerative  demand  is  Dr.  James  Freeman 
Clarke's  ample  treatise  on  the  "  Ten  Great  Re- 
ligions of  the  World."  It  was  fitting  that  such 
a  work  should  come  from  a  source  pledged  to 
the  fullest  recognition  of  religious  truth  in  all 
its  forms. 


RELIGIOUS  SENTIMENT  51 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  evidence  of  the  re- 
cent growth  of  religious  hospitality  is  to  be 
found  in  the  provision  which  was  made  for  a 
"  World's  Parliament  of  Religions "  in  con- 
nection with  the  "  World's  Columbian  Exposi- 
tion "  in  the  city  of  Chicago  a  few  years  since. 
It  is  a  fact  of  the  greatest  interest  to  all  who  be- 
lieve in  the  brotherhood  of  the  race,  that  there 
has  now  been  presented  for  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  the  ages  the  spectacle  of  a  wide-spread 
practical  recognition  of  the  fact  that  all  the  re- 
ligious faiths  of  the  world  have  their  common  root 
in  the  essentially  religious  nature  of  man.  The 
few  who  followed  the  then  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury in  keeping  aloof  from  this  truly  Catholic 
movement  on  the  ground  "  that  the  Christian  re- 
ligion is  the  one  religion,"  and  that  nothing  else 
called  by  the  name  is  entitled  to  any  respectful 
recognition,  are  on  the  way  to  creating  for  them- 
selves an  isolation  from  which  they  may  some- 
time be  glad  to  escape  into  the  freer  air  of  uni- 
versal fellowship. 

That  which  will  render  possible  at  any  time  a 
true  oecumenical  parliament  of  religion  will  be 
an  adequate  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  what- 
ever is  a  part  of  the  universal  endowment  of  the 
race  must  be  simple  and  unvarying  in  its  essen- 
tial nature  and  fluctuating  only  in  its  accidental 
and  therefore  unessential  forms.  There  will  be 
wide-spread  religious  union  only  when  the  con- 
ception of  religion  is  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms. 


52  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

The  fewer  the  points  upon  which  agreement  is 
sought  in  anything,  the  more  numerous  the 
chances  always  are  of  securing  the  desired  har- 
mony. The  nature  of  an  ultimate  faculty  of  the 
soul  can  never  be  adequately  set  forth  in  words, 
and  its  workings  must  be  actually  felt  in  order  to 
be  understood.  If  we  define  religion  as  a  feel- 
ing of  reverence  for  that  which  is  higher  than 
we,  while  we  doubtless  leave  out  some  things 
which  are  yet  generally  considered  to  be  of  the 
very  essence  of  religion,  we  speak  of  that  which 
all  who  recognize  its  existence  will  acknowledge 
to  be  the  essential  part  of  it.  Neither  can  we 
add  anything  whatever  to  this  simple  characteri- 
zation without  inviting  marked  dissent  from  some 
quarter  or  other.  If  the  religious  sentiment  is 
innate  and  therefore  universal,  its  constant  and 
ample  manifestation  is  not  to  be  looked  for,  but 
we  must  rather  expect  it  to  be  often  met  with  in 
very  rudimentary  forms,  and  sometimes  even  to 
be  so  undeveloped  or  so  atrophied  as  to  give  no 
sign  of  its  existence.  Let  us  be  careful  to  deny 
to  no  one  the  name  of  religious  —  even  to  him 
who,  because  of  his  misunderstanding  the  true 
meaning  of  the  word,  would  impatiently  reject 
its  application  to  himself.  We  are  to  remember 
that  there  are  many  ideals  short  of  the  highest, 
and  that  he  who  worships  not  the  name  of  God 
may,  like  the  great  French  positivist,  really  wor- 
ship Him  in  the  crowning  glory  of  His  creation. 
If  religion  be  truly  represented  as  being  na- 


RELIGIOUS  SENTIMENT  53 

tive  to  the  soul,  then  they  do  not  speak  wisely 
who  talk  of  "  getting  religion,"  as  though  it  were 
something  to  be  acquired  from  without,  instead 
of  a  wholly  natural  life,  to  be  developed  from 
within.  Neither  does  this  mistaken  thought  gain 
in  essential  rationality  by  being  clothed  in  the 
ill-fitting  garb  of  physical  science,  as  in  Pro- 
fessor Henry  Drummond's  "  Natural  Law  in 
the  Spiritual  World  " —  a  book  which  for  a  dec- 
ade seemed  to  so  many  to  be  a  firm  prop  for  a 
doctrine  widely  felt  to  be  sadly  in  need  of  new 
supports.  The  author  frankly  acknowledges 
that  a  thousand  modern  pulpits  every  seventh 
day  are  proclaiming  the  natural  development  of 
the  spiritual  life  instead  of  its  supernatural  com- 
munication, and  that,  to  quote  his  exact  words, 
"  the  finest  and  best  of  recent  poetry  is  colored 
with  this  same  error  " —  error  to  him,  but  God's 
truth  to  him  who  listens  with  attentive  ear  to 
the  inner  voice.  Although  evidently  unaware  of 
his  dogmatic  bias,  his  real  bondage  to  the  creed 
plainly  discovers  itself  in  his  statement  that  this 
new  conception  of  the  religious  life  "  is  founded 
upon  a  view  of  its  origin  which,  if  it  were  true, 
would  render  the  whole  scheme  [of  salvation] 
abortive."  Pleased  with  his  supposed  discovery 
of  a  way  to  convert  science  from  an  imagined 
enemy  into  an  ally  of  Christian  faith,  he  fails 
to  see  that  he  is  trying  to  lighten  his  ship  by 
cutting  adrift  the  lifeboat  instead  of  lowering 
the  anchor.     A  professed  evolutionist,  to  whom 


54  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

the  continuity  of  law  is  almost  an  axiom,  he  has- 
tens to  sacrifice  his  fundamental  principle  and 
to  introduce  a  violent  break  into  the  order  of 
nature,  for  the  sake  of  securing  a  longer  lease 
of  life  for  the  blasphemy  which  denies  that  God 
is  the  father  of  all  His  children  and  that  His 
spirit  dwells  in  every  human  heart. 

But,  as  already  suggested,  the  religious  life, 
like  the  intellectual,  although  spontaneous  in  its 
origin  and  the  most  natural  of  all  things,  is  not 
sure  of  attaining  to  its  normal  growth  without 
careful  nurture,  that  "  nurture  of  the  Lord " 
which  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  must  have  as- 
sumed to  have  moulded  the  lives  of  the  men  and 
women  of  Ephesus  upon  whom  he  enjoined  such 
watchful  care  for  the  religious  growth  of  their 
offspring.  If  in  every  human  soul  religion  and 
life  are  one  and  inseparable,  then  there  can  be 
no  more  pressing  duty  to  one's  self  than  to  cher- 
ish the  realization  of  this  union,  and  no  dearer 
office  of  friendship  than  to  seek  to  aid  our 
brother  in  his  search  for  this  sacred  bond. 


IV 
THE  PRESENT  GOD 

FRANK  C.  DOAN 


THE  PRESENT  GOD 

i 

There  is  one  conviction  of  the  inner  life  to 
which  we  men  of  religion  must  commit  our  spirits 
absolutely  and  unreservedly.  It  is  the  sense  of 
God's  real  presence  in  our  human  lives.  Men 
have  defined  the  spirit  of  God  in  a  thousand 
ways.  A  man  of  science  seeks  an  adequate  ex- 
pression of  God  in  terms  of  physical  majesty: 
God  is  the  infinite  energy  present  in  unthinkable 
intensity  in  the  great  teeming  cosmos  round 
about  us.  The  man  of  philosophy  expresses 
God  in  terms  of  spiritual  majesty:  God  is  infinite 
Spirit  interpenetrating  and  transfiguring  the  ma- 
chine we  call  the  world.  The  man  of  sorrow 
finds  God  a  spirit  acquainted  with  grief;  the 
man  of  j  oy ,  a  spirit  of  infinite  gladness ;  the  man 
discouraged  by  the  hard  pressure  of  life  upon 
him  finds  in  God  a  spirit  of  infinite  restfulness 
and  unconquerable  confidence ;  the  man  of  unholy 
passion  attains  some  day  in  God  a  life  of  perfect 
purity ;  the  man  of  impatient  spirit,  a  life  of  in- 
finite patience.  And  so  the  tender  life  of  God 
unfolds  itself  in  infinite  ways  in  the  lives  of  us 
human  beings. 

n 

Now,  it  is  the  genuineness,  the  reality  and  cer- 
tainty of  this  divine  presence  in  our  human  life 
57 


58  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

that  I  want  to  make  clear  in  these  moments  of 
our  meditation  together.  I  have  known  many 
wavering  men  who  have  felt  this  world-old  call 
of  the  divine  life  in  their  souls  but  who  have  been 
either  too  timid  or  too  perplexed  to  yield  to  its 
eternal  pressure  upon  their  lives.  In  their  timid- 
ity of  spirit  they  have  seemed  to  themselves  to 
be  unworthy  of  the  divine  presence,  unable  to 
live  every  moment  unashamed  in  the  sight  of 
God.  Or  they  have  been  too  perplexed  by  the 
rudeness  and  crudeness  of  the  world  of  men  round 
about  them  to  believe  that  humanity  is  indeed 
and  in  truth  the  garment  of  a  great  inner  di- 
vinity. 

Yet  this  timidity  and  confusion  of  spirit  al- 
ways fade  away  in  the  light  of  a  great  experi- 
ence of  God.  In  meditation  upon  the  presence 
of  God  in  the  human  race,  in  meditation  upon 
the  saintly  men  and  women  who  all  through  the 
ages  have  trusted  in  God  and  were  not  ashamed, 
in  meditation  upon  the  burning,  commanding 
spirit  of  God  discovered  by  those  who  have  stood 
upon  mounts  of  vision  far  above  men  and  worlds 
of  men  —  one  cannot  doubt  that  God  is !  Our 
timidity  becomes  childish,  our  perplexity  merely 
a  defect  of  our  poor,  finite  humanity.  One  may 
at  last  overcome  this  childishness  and  finiteness 
of  his  humanity  and  himself  stand  forth  in  the 
light  of  the  ages,  stand  forth  like  a  man !  In 
this  great  experience  of  the  infinite  spirit  of  God 
a  man  discovers   for  the  first  time  and  for  all 


THE  PRESENT  GOD  59 

eternity  that  his  own  human  manhood  is  everlast- 
ingly justified  and  dignified  by  the  infinite  and 
invisible  Manhood  of  God. 

We  ought  to  be  very  quiet  and  reverent  and 
solemn  now,  for  here  we  stand  in  the  presence 
of  one  of  the  everlasting  mysteries  of  God. 
Here  we  may  learn  in  silent  meditation  the  way 
of  the  great  overbrooding  spirit  of  God.  It  is 
not  the  way  of  childish  timidities  nor  of  hopeless 
perplexities  of  spirit.  We  must  learn,  sooner  or 
later,  that  the  great  spirit  of  God  cannot  yield 
itself  wholly  to  our  human  life,  cannot  wholly 
put  on  the  perfect  humanity  for  which  the  in- 
finite heart  of  God  is  eternally  crying  out  until 
the  human  spirit  at  whose  portals  the  divine  spirit 
is  ever  waiting  calls  out  openly,  honestly  and 
manfully  "  O  God,  if  thou  be,  enter  my  life  and 
make  it  wholly  thine ;  make  it  infinitely  pure,  in- 
finitely alive  to  that  life  of  triumphant  righteous- 
ness and  love  in  which  alone  thy  divine  life  can 
realize  its  infinite  humanity."  Lay  bare  your 
spirit  before  this  living  God,  put  aside  the  very 
sandals  of  your  soul  and  stand  naked  in  spirit 
and  unashamed  in  the  presence  of  God  and  the 
great  spirit  of  God  will  surround  and  invade  your 
being  with  an  almost  terrifying  certainty.  The 
timidity  and  perplexity  of  your  earlier  search 
for  God  will  remain  only  as  the  memory  and 
symbol  of  your  own  imperfect  humanity.  You 
will  have  learned  for  all  eternity  the  invisible, 
unconquerable  humanity  of  God. 


60  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

This,  I  say,  is  the  eternal  mystery  of  the  di- 
vine life:  that  in  the  very  hour  when  the  human 
soul  gives  itself  up  absolutely  to  the  awful  in- 
finity of  God's  being  it  comes  to  know  something 
of  the  infinite  humanity  of  God.  In  abandoning 
one's  self  wholly  to  the  being  of  God  one  finds 
that  in  an  infinitely  mysterious  way  the  divine 
life  is  human,  that  the  very  inmost  being  of  God 
is  reaching  out  infinitely  toward  all  that  is  deep- 
est and  intensest  and  noblest  in  the  life  we  call 
human.  The  soul's  communion  with  God  when 
the  spirit  of  God  unobstructed  by  human  hesita- 
tions and  withdrawals  completely  invades  our  hu- 
man life  —  it  is  the  hour  when  we  see  our  human 
life  in  its  infinite  dimensions,  the  hour  when  we 
know  the  invisible  humanity  of  God. 

Too  often  men  have  supposed  that  the  point 
of  contact  between  humanity  and  God  is  reached 
by  the  throwing  out  of  many,  magnificent 
phrases,  such  as  omniscience,  omnipotence,  omni- 
presence and  the  like,  when  all  along  the  human 
spirit  has  stood  ready  and  eager  to  believe  in  these 
immense  realities  of  God  if  only  they  could  be 
realized  in  our  poor,  human  life.  Just  how  is  the 
infinite  power,  the  infinite  wisdom,  the  infinite 
presence  of  God  to  move  within  the  narrow  con- 
fines of  our  finite  humanity?  Do  not  the  very 
terms  of  our  deification  of  God  estrange  Him 
from  the  trials  and  errors  and  sorrows  of  our  hu- 
man lives? 

In  these  quivering  questions  of  poor  humanity 


THE  PRESENT  GOD  61 

I  always  seem  to  hear  the  sad  voice  of  a  human 
soul  crying  out  for  the  living  God.  "  Oh,  that 
I  could  find  God;  the  living  God!  I  am  weary 
of  men's  faint  descriptions  of  God.  I  want  God, 
a  patient  and  hopeful  God  whose  infinite  being 
is  all  alive  with  the  hopes  and  passions  of  our 
human  life,  whose  power  and  presence  are  en- 
gaged with  men  in  the  way  of  righteousness  and 
love,  whose  infinite  being  is  daily,  hourly  putting 
on  the  garments  of  Humanity." 

I  talked  the  other  day  with  a  noble  man  who 
is  spending  the  strong  years  of  his  life  working 
in  city  missions.  He  is  trying  to  redeem 'human 
life  at  just  those  points  where  the  divine  life  is 
threatened  by  apparently  incurable  diseases  of  sin. 
He  told  me  of  a  man  whom  he  had  seen  arise  and 
fall  again  and  again  in  a  frightful  struggle  with 
a  degrading  appetite  of  the  soul  that  was  assail- 
ing him.  And  my  friend  said  to  me  "  I  tell  you, 
as  I  watched  the  man,  and  saw  the  divine  fire  ap- 
pear and  then  fade  away,  then  reappear  and 
again  fade  away,  each  reappearance  of  the  spirit 
finding  him  a  little  nearer  the  infinite  light  of 
God,  as  I  watched  the  awful  struggle  and  de- 
termination of  the  spirit  of  God  in  this  fighting, 
human  soul  —  I  tell  you  I  could  have  worshipped 
the  man,  I  could  have  fallen  on  my  knees  and 
worshipped." 

Well,  don't  you  see  it  was  God  in  the  Man? 
If  ever  there  is  a  God,  it  is  the  God  who  has 
dedicated  His  whole  eternal  life  to  this  struggle 


62  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

of  humanity  to  become  divine.  The  hour  in 
which  your  human  life  takes  on  divinity,  the  hour 
in  which  once  for  all  eternity  you  resolve  in 
your  inmost  soul  to  live  always  in  the  presence 
of  an  infinite  being  of  holiness  and  love,  the  hour 
in  which  your  human  life  becomes  triumphantly 
divine  is  just  the  hour  in  which  the  divine  life 
becomes  triumphantly  human. 

ni 

And  genuinely  to  believe  in  this  invisible  hu- 
manity of  God  brings  into  the  human  life  a  won- 
derful sense  of  perfect  communion  with  God. 
Do  you  find  the  conditions  of  life  hard?  They 
are  infinitely  harder  for  God,  my  friend.  Is 
your  spirit  clogged  by  the  mass  of  duties  which 
you  wearily  face  with  the  dawn  of  each  new  day? 
Ah,  think  of  the  world-weariness  of  God,  and  be 
still!  Is  a  man's  soul  marred  by  some  vice  of 
his  inner  life?  What  pollutes  man  pollutes  God. 
I  am  looking  always  for  that  prophet  of  the 
spirit  of  God  who  shall  burn  this  world-old  truth 
into  the  souls  of  men:  God  is  in  very  deed  bone 
of  their  bone,  flesh  of  their  flesh,  spirit  of  their 
spirit;  God  is  in  truth  closer  to  our  human  life 
than  breathing,  nearer  than  hands  and  feet;  all 
the  plague-spots  in  human  life,  all  the  houses  of 
sin,  all  the  hours  of  solitary  unfaithfulness  and 
dishonor,  are  places  and  times  where  the  precious 
spirit  of  God  is  being  debased  and  ruined  for  that 
which  is  not  holy  and  righteous.     Oh !  the  spirit 


THE  PRESENT  GOD  63 

of  man  must  hide  itself  in  shame,  must  cry  out 
in  heart-broken  penitence  when  once  it  knows 
the  humiliation  and  suffering  its  faithlessness  has 
brought  into  the  sensitive  spirit  of  God. 

Does  the  glory  of  man  lie  in  triumphing  over 
these  lowering  conditions  of  life?  So  is  it  with 
God.  You  need  not  suppose  that  the  perfection 
of  God  is  for  Him  an  eternal,  unworked-for 
beauty  of  soul.  He  who  thinks  he  sees  in  God 
this  placid,  unmoved  and  solitary  perfection  has 
placed  a  poor,  human  soul  in  the  high  place  of 
God  —  a  human  soul  whose  face  is  unmarred  by 
life's  imperfections,  but  only  because  it  has  al- 
ways been  protected  from  the  winds  that  blow 
and  the  storms  that  wreck.  But  the  spirit  of 
God  has  faced  the  storms  and  winds  of  an  eter- 
nity and  is  still  triumphing  over  a  whole  world 
of  sins  and  pains  and  sorrows.  Who  then  sees 
the  perfection  of  God  sees  in  infinite  number  and 
in  infinite  directions  the  lines  of  Character,  the 
invisible  marks  of  a  divine  Humanity,  the  nobility 
of  whose  perfection  consists  in  the  simple  yet 
unthinkable  sinlessness  of  the  divine  being:  a  di- 
vine life  all  full  of  our  human  impulses  and  pas- 
sions, yet  never  once  in  all  eternity  yielding  the 
divine  ideal  to  that  which  is  base  and  mean. 

IV 

Of  this  invisible  humanity  of  God  there  is  no 
visible  sign  or  symbol.  Men  who  ignobly  turn 
from  the  simple,  daily  duties  and  cares  of  life 


64  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

and  cry  "  Lord,  show  us  a  sign,"  "  Lord,  Lord 
what  shall  we  do  to  be  saved  "  are  not  ready  for 
the  beatific  vision.  There  is  no  luxury  in  this 
experience  of  God.  In  this  vision  there  is  the 
peace  that  passeth  understanding  but  there  is 
in  it  no  ravishing  luxury  of  spirit.  The  vision 
is  for  him  who  gladly  accepts  its  blessed  chal- 
lenges. It  is  for  him  who  finds  joy  only  in  the 
way  of  righteousness,  whose  spirit  leaps  out  with 
a  great  joy  into  an  eternity  of  life  and  duty, 
for  him  who  knows  not  what  the  everlasting  years 
may  bring  of  joy  or  of  sorrow  into  his  eternal 
spirit  but  who  will  not  doubt  that  his  is  God's 
way,  his  life  God's  life,  his  endless  humanity  the 
ever  patient  and  hopeful  divinity  of  God.  It  is 
for  the  man  who  can  find  in  the  ever  human  and 
understanding  spirit  of  God  the  power  to  recover 
from  some  staggering  blow  of  life,  the  will  to 
feel  the  tender,  wholesome  spirit  of  divine  life 
struggling  and  conquering  day  by  day  in  the  life 
of  humanity.  The  vision  is  for  him  who  for 
God's  sake  sees  every  living  creature  transfigured 
in  this  light  of  the  ages,  who  sees  God  fighting  in 
the  very  face  of  human  idiocy  and  sin,  who  is 
able  to  see  in  the  desolate  ruins  of  human  institu- 
tions and  of  human  lives  something  of  the  infinite 
sorrow  of  God,  something  of  the  marred  and  de- 
feated spirit  of  the  Father  of  mankind. 

And  yet,  who  save  God  Himself  may  cry  "  De- 
feated." Is  it  not  just  the  mystery  of  this  di- 
vine life  that  it  breathes  forth  an  invisible  and  in- 


THE  PRESENT  GOD  65 

fallible  faith  in  our  human  lives,  that  in  the  very 
moment  when  human  priests  have  sadly  con- 
demned a  child  of  God  to  eternal  death,  the 
greater,  wiser,  patienter  spirit  of  God  is  there 
endlessly  confident,  infinitely  faithful,  pronounc- 
ing its  everlasting  "  no ; "  reviving  the  fainting 
spirit;  crooning  over  the  sin-sodden  human  soul; 
soothing  it  to  sleep,  it  may  be  —  but  to  a  sleep 
which  shall  not  end  in  death ;  a  sleep,  rather,  from 
which  the  human  spirit  shall  awaken  refreshed 
and  re-strengthened  to  re-enter  the  life  of  the 
world  and  the  life  of  God?  Once  more,  the  mys- 
tery of  God's  invisible  humanity,  the  unseen  real- 
ity of  a  divine  life  which  is  genuinely,  under- 
standing^ all  that  our  human  life  from  day  to 
day  is  seeking  and  hoping  to  be,  a  divine  life  in 
which  weariness,  impatience  and  hopelessness  are 
ever  present,  seeking  to  defeat  the  infinitudes  sur- 
rounding our  human  life,  and  yet  a  spirit  of  God 
which,  if  weary  never  rests,  if  impatient  never 
strikes,  if  hopeless  never  dies. 


V 
THE  JOY  OF  RELIGION 

FBANCIS  A.  CHRISTIE 


THE  JOY  OF  RELIGION 

Since  we  hunger  for  happiness  let  us  heed  the 
promise  of  joy  in  religion.  Those  who  have 
tasted  and  seen  that  the  Lord  is  good  tell  us  of 
a  happy  thankfulness  to  God.  How  many  of  us 
have  listened  to  them  with  a  faith  perplexed  and 
souls  sad  or  depressed!  When  we  encounter  the 
buoyant  joyous  life  of  many  of  God's  saints  over- 
flowing with  this  thankful  gladness,  we  envy 
them,  we  deplore  our  own  estate.  Is  it  a  lost  art 
for  us,  a  lost  joy,  this  thankfulness?  Shall  we 
be  like  the  pagans  whom  St.  Paul  describes? 
They  offered  many  sacrifices,  they  made  much  of 
religious  ceremony;  but  they  had  no  rejoicing 
adoration  in  their  hearts.  As  if  to  sum  up  their 
perversity,  St.  Paul  declares,  "  Neither  were  they 
thankful."  How  shall  we  win  the  happiness  of 
the  grateful  saints? 

Let  us  be  natural  and  sincere  about  it.  If  a 
man  says :  You  ought  to  be  grateful  to  me,  I  ask 
him  at  once,  For  what?  Show  me  that  he  has 
been  kind  and  I  am  grateful  without  imperatives 
and  without  constraint.  Gratitude  comes  of 
itself.  If  it  were  a  thankfulness  offered  as  a 
blind  duty,  it  would  mean  no  real  feeling  in  me 
and  would  be  no  joy  to  my  friend.  So  thankful- 
ness to  God  should  be  the  heart's  spontaneous  in- 
cense like  the  fragrance  which  the  violet  breathes 
to  the  kind  heaven. 

69 


70  KELIGION  AND  LIFE 

Once  every  welcome  happening  was  received  as 
a  special  providence.  A  man  easily  blessed  God 
for  each  event  that  gratified  desire.  For  us,  in 
our  day,  the  outer  life  of  the  changing  world  is  a 
system  too  vast  to  be  interpreted  in  detail  as  appli- 
cations to  our  single  passing  needs.  But  why 
cease  rejoicing  in  the  whole?  Why  give  over 
thankfulness  for  the  whole  simply  because  the 
past  no  longer  can  claim  the  meaning  that  be- 
longs to  the  whole?  Grasp  the  whole  in  one 
complete  vision  —  and  surely  the  heart  leaps  up. 
It  is  a  world  that  lives  by  a  mathematic  intelli- 
gence. Simply  to  know  its  laws  expands  the  in- 
telligence of  man  and  makes  him  the  master  of 
his  conditions.  It  is  a  world  robed  in  beauty  — 
a  world  that  by  its  bold  splendors  and  its  tender 
secrecies  of  form  and  color  or  music  enchants  the 
senses  and  refreshes  the  heart  of  man.  It  is  a 
world  that  flowers  in  human  life  and  pours  its 
own  divine  intent  into  man's  precious  joys  of 
love  and  friendship.  It  is  a  world  of  alluring 
challenges  for  splendid  human  adventures  of  dis- 
covery and  conquest.  It  solicits  your  most  dar- 
ing enterprise.  It  is  inexhaustible  to  your  love 
of  achievement.  It  environs  you  with  ever  fresh 
demands  for  deed  and  thought.  It  dispenses 
ever  fresh  rewards  for  your  ideal  cravings. 
Yes,  we  are  thankful.  Life  is  good  and  we 
thank  the  Giver. 

Yet,  even  so  I  am  unsatisfied.  This  is  a  grati- 
tude that  rises  in   cool  reflection.     It  does  not 


THE  JOY  OF  RELIGION  71 

thrill  me  like  the  affection  that  throbs  for  a  pres- 
ent friend  in  human  companionships.  Suppose 
that  an  absent  benefactor  bestowed  on  me  a 
goodly  house  and  fruitful  fields  for  my  life's 
shelter  and  sustenance.  I  should  be  grateful, 
but  his  absence  would  rob  my  feeling  of  its  full 
joy.  Yet  if  he  came  and  visited  me  by  word 
and  message  or  by  personal  presence,  if  he  should 
share  my  life  even  a  little,  entering  into  my  daily 
use  of  his  gifts,  if  he  gave  me  himself  with  his 
gift,  then  it  would  all  be  different.  The  gift 
would  still  be  an  outer  possession,  an  external 
thing,  but  his  giving  would  be  an  interior  thing 
of  my  heart-life,  through  his  companionship. 
The  gift  and  the  giving  would  be  a  ministration 
of  friendship  and  all  sense  of  obligation  would 
pass  into  free  spontaneous  love. 

Is  not  such  a  loving  thankfulness  to  God  in- 
evitable to  us,  something  sweeter  than  the  grati- 
tude of  reflection,  something  that  glows  with  com- 
forting joy?  For  God  is  the  great  Companion 
of  every  life.  He  is  not  a  mere  absent  bene- 
factor but  an  interior  friend  ministering  to  us  in 
the  hidden  ways  of  our  private  self -hood.  That 
the  early  Christian  was  peculiarly  full  of  joy 
was  because  he  felt  God  with  him  and  within 
him.  He  had  love,  j  oy,  peace  in  the  Holy  Spirit, 
in  the  divine  presence  within  him.  The  outer 
scene  was  the  same  for  his  pagan  neighbor  as 
for  him.  Wind  and  weather,  storm  and  sun- 
shine, dearth  of  winter  and  fulness  of  harvest, 


72  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

these  were  the  same  for  both.  But  the  Christian 
felt  that  God  was  the  inner  companion  of  his 
life  in  the  midst  of  these  outer  scenes.  He  felt 
that  a  compassionate  Father  shared  his  life  with 
a  sacred  intimacy  and  from  this  great  friend- 
ship he  expected  blessings  more  than  eye  had 
seen  or  ear  heard,  or  the  craving  heart  had  im- 
agined. Therefore  he  had  joy  in  his  faith. 
Therefore  he  was  wholly  thankful.  His  heart 
blossomed  up  in  thankfulness  to  God  because  of 
the  sunshine  of  a  divine  presence  in  his  heart. 
And  this  made  the  Christian  a  different  man  from 
his  pagan  neighbor.  The  ancient  man  of  the 
classic  heritage  conceived  life  as  a  play  of  great 
objects  without  him.  He  expressed  his  interests 
and  ideals  in  shapes  and  obj  ects  of  the  outer  scene. 
Life  itself  must  stand  before  his  contemplation 
as  a  great  theory  or  drama.  God  must  approach 
him  through  the  scheme  of  things  without,  must 
reveal  himself  in  or  through  the  operations  of  a 
world  constructed  by  thought  into  a  great  ob- 
jectified unity  or  universe.  But  more  and  more 
the  Christian  valued  the  inner  attitude  of  the 
spiritual  personality.  He  found  God  in  the  re- 
buke of  conscience,  in  the  peace  of  his  contrition, 
in  the  hopes  and  enthusiasms  of  his  best  inward 
being.  In  the  inner  emotions,  in  the  hallowing 
of  his  will  and  the  purification  of  his  desires,  he 
felt  himself  dwelling  in  the  sacred  intimate 
friendship  and  companionship  of  the  Perfect  and 
Holy  Will.     Even  though  he  fails  to  grasp  the 


THE  JOY  OF  RELIGION  73 

great  scheme  of  things  entire  in  some  complete 
and  flawless  theory,  in  great  pictorial  images  and 
forms  of  thought,  the  Christian  has  a  sense  of  the 
divineness  of  his  experience  as  he  apprehends  it 
inwardly  in  the  heart  that  seeks  to  conform  itself 
to  the  Holy  Will,  in  the  spirit  that  responds  to 
a  Perfect  Spirit,  to  a  perfection  that  visits  his 
own  bosom.  He  may  fail  to  express  it  all  in 
some  clear  form  of  reasoning,  but  he  can  sing  it. 
He  may  utter  it  in  the  chants  and  hymns  of  an 
art  that  more  truly  than  logic  can  express  and 
declare  the  soul's  need  of  companionship  and  the 
soul's  joy  and  loving,  the  soul's  rest  in  commun- 
ion. He  sings  to  the  Lord  a  song  of  thank- 
fulness. Even  for  human  friendships  a  science 
might  be  vainly  attempted,  yet  all  the  while 
friendship  has  a  voice  and  a  language  and 
its  utterance  of  itself  is  lyrical.  It  is  a 
song  of  joy  for  an  existence  intensified  and 
transfigured  not  through  any  change  in  the  outer 
world,  but  by  the  world's  new  illumination  from 
the  heart's  own  happiness. 

"  O  friend,  my  bosom  said, 
Through  thee  alone,  the  sky  is  arched, 
Through  thee  the  rose  is  red, 
All  things  through  thee  take  nobler  form 
And  look  beyond  the  earth. 
The  mill-round  of  our  fate  appears 
A  sunpath  in  thy  worth." 

There  are  degrees  of  faith,  degrees  of  appre- 


74  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

ciation,  of  insight  and  realization.  It  is  a  high 
and  blessed  attainment  to  see  no  mill-round  of 
fate  but  only  a  sunpath  of  hope,  because  of  the 
great  worth  of  God,  because  of  the  secret  adora- 
tion of  the  Perfect  Spirit  that  has  been  quick- 
ened and  animated  in  the  inner  life,  transfusing 
the  heart  with  serene  expectancies  and  making  it 
musical  with  thankfulness  since  He  shares  our 
life  in  this  mansion  of  His  own  giving. 

It  is  good  to  sing  praises  unto  our  God.  Yes 
— 'there  are  happy  saints  who  rejoice  in  the 
Lord  alway.  But  we,  you  say,  are  not  al- 
ways such.  For  us  the  earth  is  not  always  fair 
nor  the  sky  stainless.  For  us  there  are  days  of 
silent  and  secret  misery.  Old  wounds  bleed 
afresh.  We  feel  the  tug  of  ball  and  chain  in  our 
wretched  captivity.  There  is  the  great  cloud  of 
human  pain  and  evil.  There  is  a  gloomy  prob- 
lem that  my  mind  and  my  understanding  cannot 
dispel.  Give  me  some  science  or  system  that  will 
explain  and  by  explanation  banish  from  the  man- 
sion of  God's  giving  the  specter,  nay  the  clutch- 
ing reality  of  evil!  I  will  not  say  that  there  is 
such  a  science.  I  will  not  say  that  you  shall 
walk  by  sight  and  not  by  faith.  I  will  not  say 
that  you  will  banish  the  fact  of  evil.  But  you 
may  vanquish  its  power  and  wrest  from  it  a  finer 
good.  The  evil  that  carried  you  away  captive 
requires  a  song  and  you  will  sing  the  Lord's  song 
with  a  voice  of  undying  devotion  more  sweet, 
more  beautiful,  more  thrilling  because  it  is  the 


THE  JOY  OF  RELIGION  75 

thankfulness  learned  in  the  strange  land  of  pain. 
The  reasoning  mind  may  find  no  full  answer  for 
its  logical  questions,  but  the  heart  may  find  rea- 
sons that  reason  knows  not  of.  The  wrestling 
will  may  find  God  in  the  sore  experience  of  evil  be- 
fore the  understanding  wins  the  daylight  of  expla- 
nation. A  strange  visitant  of  the  night  wrestled 
with  Jacob  and  wounded  him  and  cried,  "  Let  me 
go  for  the  day  breaketh."  And  Jacob  answered, 
"  I  will  not  let  thee  go  except  thou  bless  me."  It 
is  a  parable  for  all  the  ages.  The  wounding  and 
the  blessing,  both  are  real.  Calamity  crushes. 
Suffering  wastes  us.  Moral  ordeals  torture  us. 
Death  robs  us  and  leaves  us  gashed  and  naked  and 
prone.  It  is  the  religious  man  who  feels  all  this 
with  the  keenest  pain.  The  man  of  the  world  is 
often  hard  and  unsympathetic.  Robbed  of  a 
pleasure  he  turns  to  other  pleasures  that  make 
him  forget  the  loss.  The  religious  man  suffers 
the  more  keenly  with  a  suffering  that  penetrates 
to  his  inner  life.  He  quivers  with  a  spiritual 
misery  not  for  his  own  hurt  merely  but  for  the 
blight  on  other  lives.  It  was  Jesus  who  sweat 
drops  of  blood.  But  he  who  suffers  so  keenly  is 
just  the  one  who  most  surely  knows  the  goodness 
of  God.  That  knowledge  is  not  perfect  until  it 
is  made  perfect  through  suffering.  Jesus  is  the 
great  instance  again.  The  Father  was  with  him 
when  he  was  abandoned  and  alone.  The  disciple 
can  learn  the  same  befriending  and  companionship 
of  God  in  his   sorest  distress.     Is  he  tempted? 


76  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

Has  he  a  weakness  of  nature,  a  wrong  disposition  ? 
It  is  an  evil,  but  the  wrestling  with  that  evil  may 
discover  the  presence  of  the  Perfect  Will  making 
his  struggle  a  source  of  good.  So  long  as  he 
wrestles,  he  is  disciplined  and  fortified.  All  the 
unused  and  unformed  material  of  goodness  in 
him  is  shaped  and  strengthened  by  the  struggle. 
All  the  resources  of  many  different  capacities  of 
good  seem  to  come  trooping  to  the  aid  of  the 
weaker  member  of  his  life.  A  great  Ally  is 
marshalling  his  forces  for  him  and  handling  the 
battle  for  him  and  showing  him  through  the  very 
shock  of  war  the  supreme  meaning  and  glory 
of  moral  conquest.  God  is  for  me  —  cries  the 
man  in  combat  for  his  soul. 

Or  is  it  some  bewildering  loss  for  which  there  is 
no  comfort  of  comprehension,  no  consolation  of 
remaining  joy.  Your  heart  has  never  ceased  to 
ache.  But  the  heartache  can  become  the  most  sa- 
cred thing  in  your  life.  The  whole  divine  bidding 
to  be  perfect  as  God  is  perfect  can  centre  round 
the  heartache  and  speak  to  you  there  and  get 
meaning  and  power  there.  The  heartache  is  a 
kind  of  holy  shrine  in  man.  It  is  the  place  where 
he  learns  pity  and  kindness  and  patience  and  gen- 
tleness. It  is  the  holy  place  that  makes  him  as- 
piring and  prayerful.  It  is  there  that  he  asks 
to  be  known  and  comprehended.  It  is  there  that 
he  whispers  Thou  to  an  enfolding  knowledge  and 
presence.  It  is  there  he  learns  that  he  is  not 
alone  but  the  Father  is  with  him.     It  is  there  he 


THE  JOY  OF  RELIGION  77 

learns  to  say  with  a  quiver  of  comprehension: 
Even  the  night  can  be  light  about  me.  It  is  a 
good  thing  to  sing  praises  for  the  sweet  hope 
of  spring  and  the  redolent  joy  of  summer,  but 
only  he  who  in  the  dark  and  wintry  facts  of  life 
has  felt  the  support  of  the  everlasting  arms  of 
the  heavenly  friendship,  only  he  can  find  all  of 
life  a  unity  of  divine  goodness.  He  who  in 
misery  and  darkness  and  shame  found  himself  not 
alone,  he  more  than  all  men  sees  his  thought  the 
partial  image  of  a  thought  complete,  his  striv- 
ing the  execution  of  a  purpose  all  beneficent,  his 
joy  the  overflowing  of  an  infinite  energy  of  good 
whose  child  and  likeness  he  is,  in  whom  he  lives 
and  moves  and  has  his  being. 

It  is  a  happy  thing  to  thank  our  human 
brother  for  his  kindness  and  affection.  It  is  a 
joy  to  know  and  acknowledge  his  love.  It  is  the 
soul's  good,  the  soul's  joy,  to  praise  God  for  His 
befriending.  You  and  I  ask  for  riches  and  ease 
and  then  we  discover  the  inner  misery  of  many 
who  possess  them.  We  ask  for  place  and  pres- 
tige and  power  and  we  find  the  holders  of  them 
pronouncing  their  privileges  dust  and  ashes. 
We  want  joy  and  only  one  thing  can  bring  joy 
to  any  lot.  Only  love  can  bestow  joy.  A  great 
secret  struggles  to  utter  itself  in  all  religions. 
It  throbs  and  pulses  in  the  religion  of  Jesus.  It 
makes  men  stammer  strange,  fantastic  prophe- 
cies and  bewildering  hopes.  It  shapes  theories 
of   expiations   and   creates   sacraments    of   com- 


78  KELIGION  AND  LIFE 

munion.  It  frames  systems  of  doctrine  and  ex- 
planations for  itself.  The  form  of  prophecy 
may  fail  to  satisfy.  The  sacrament  may  be- 
come inadequate.  The  doctrine  may  be  outworn. 
The  secret  and  the  song  remain,  the  great  un- 
defeated and  undying  joy  renews  the  praise  of 
God.  The  great  wonder  wakens  anew;  what  is 
man  that  Thou  visitest  him!  The  great  com- 
panionship is  ours.  The  holy  and  perfect  benefi- 
cence of  God  is  a  presence,  an  intimate  interior 
wonder,  rebuking,  chastening,  hallowing,  refin- 
ing, ennobling,  exalting,  gladdening ;  bringing  us 
from  our  low  beginnings  to  the  stature  of  the  Son 
of  God,  investing  our  sluggish  hearts  until  they 
shall  start  with  clear  and  certain  recognition  and 
cry  Abba,  Father  J 

There  is  joy,  for  there  is  love,  and  those  who 
know  that  love  sing  praise  to  God. 


VI 
THE  PROPHET'S  FUNCTION 

HENEY  PEESEEVED  SMITH 


THE  PROPHET'S  FUNCTION 

What  is  the  use  of  religion?     To  this-  ques- 
tion there  may  be  many  answers.     Religion  is 
closely  united-  with  so  many  human  interests  that 
it  may  be  considered  in  different  aspects,  and  we 
can  hardly  expect  to  define  it  in  a  single  sentence 
or  estimate  its  value  by  one  method  of  approach. 
For  the  present  we  will  consider  the  conception 
of  one  of  the  most  gifted  of  preachers  who  ap- 
prehended his  mission  clearly  and  expressed  his 
apprehension  in  these  words :  "  The  spirit  of  the 
Lord   God   is   upon   me   because   the   Lord   has 
anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the  meek ; 
he  hath  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted, 
to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives  and  the  open- 
ing of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound;  to 
proclaim  the  year  of  the  Lord's  favor  and  the 
day  of  vengeance  of  our  God;  to  comfort  all 
that  mourn ;  to  appoint  unto  them  that  mourn  in 
Zion  to  give  unto  them  a  garland  for  ashes,  the 
oil  of  joy  for  mourning,  the  garment  of  praise 
for  the  spirit  of  heaviness;  that  they  may  be 
called  trees  of  righteousness,  the  planting  of  the 
Lord  that  he  may  be  glorified."     (Is.  lxi,  1-3). 
The  circumstances  in  which  these  words  were 
written  are  much  more  clear  to  us  than  they  were 
to  the  men  who  regarded  them  as  the  words  of 
Isaiah  the  son  of  Amoz.     In  fact  Isaiah's  con- 
ception of  his  mission  was  very  different.     He 
81 


82  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

was  sent  to  rebuke  and  threaten,  whereas  our 
prophet  is  sent  to  comfort  and  encourage.  Our 
prophet  spoke  so  evidently  to  the  depressed  and 
suffering  exiles  of  Judah  that  we  wonder  how  any 
one  could  shut  his  eyes  to  the  fact.  His  concep- 
tion of  his  mission  must  be  interpreted  by  this 
fact.  What  he  is  trying  to  tell  us  is  the  value 
of  religion  in  a  time  of  sorrow.  To  this  subject 
we  may  give  a  little  attention. 

The  keenest  pang  suffered  by  the  Israelites  in 
exile  came  from  their  disappointment  at  God 
Himself.  In  the  traditions  which  had  come  down 
from  the  fathers  they  had  learned  how  God  had 
chosen  Jerusalem  for  His  own  dwelling,  how  He 
had  directed  Solomon  to  build  Him  a  temple  there, 
how  that  temple  had  been  preserved  from  the 
enemy  at  more  than  one  trying  crisis.  Even  a 
Sennacherib  with  the  whole  Assyrian  empire  at 
his  back  had  not  been  able  to  capture  it.  But 
the  confidence  based  on  these  traditions  had 
proved  vain.  Nebuchadrezzar  had  done  more 
than  Sennacherib  could  do.  He  had  taken  Jeru- 
salem and  laid  it  waste,  and  had  burned  the  beau- 
tiful house  with  fire.  How  severe  was  the  blow  to 
faith  struck  by  this  episode!  It  was  as  if  God 
had  abandoned  His  own.  In  fact,  not  a  few  of 
the  Jews  said  openly  that  their  God  had  gone 
away,  and  that  they  must  therefore  worship  some 
other  divinity.  But  some  there  were  who  re- 
mained faithful,  yet  with  a  tormenting  sense  of 
perplexity.     Could  they  worship  their  God  in  a 


THE  PROPHET'S  FUNCTION        83 

foreign  land?  Could  He  who  had  not  protected 
His  own  temple  —  could  He  see  and  hear  them  in 
the  far-off  Babylon?  These  were  the  questions 
that  must  be  answered.  It  was  their  prophet's 
privilege  to  answer  them;  and  his  answer  was  to 
these  perplexed  ones  a  veritable  revelation. 

He  answered  by  giving  them  a  better  knowledge 
of  God  and  His  ways.  The  trouble  with  them  had 
been  partly  their  limited  conception  of  God.  They 
(perhaps  even  the  most  pious  among  them)  had 
thought  of  God  as  Israel's  God,  one  among  many. 
He  was,  perhaps,  more  powerful  than  the  gods 
of  the  nations ;  He  was  certainly  better  in  His 
dealing  with  His  people.  But  He  was  after  all 
only  one  among  many  divinities.  So  long  as 
they  stood  on  this  ground  it  was  inevitable  that 
they  should  despair  when  their  city  and  temple 
were  given  over  to  the  flames.  The  only  way  they 
could  recover  their  faith  was  by  rising  to  a  larger 
conception.  This  was  pointed  out  by  our 
prophet.  To  him  Israel's  Jehovah  is  the  God  of 
the  whole  earth.  His  plan  is  not  confined  to 
Israel  —  it  embraces  the  nations  also.  The  sur- 
render of  Jerusalem  was  a  part  of  His  design  to 
show  His  control  of  the  great  movements  of  man- 
kind. The  only  reason  the  Israelite  had  been 
stunned  by  the  blow  was  that  he  had  not  com- 
prehended the  larger  design.  "  My  thoughts  are 
not  your  thoughts  "  was  the  message,  but  this  was 
because  His  ways  were  higher  than  theirs  and  His 
thoughts  larger  than  theirs. 


84  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

Looking  back  on  the  course  of  history  we  see 
that  the  prophet  was  right.  The  time  had  fully 
come  for  the  local  and  tribal  conception  of  God 
to  be  shattered  that  it  might  be  replaced  by  a 
larger  one.  It  could  be  shattered  only  by  some 
catastrophe  such  as  the  fall  of  Jerusalem.  With- 
out the  catastrophe  the  religion  of  Israel  would 
never  have  taken  the  step  in  advance  which  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  New  Testament  and  for 
Christianity.  The  suffering  which  was  necessary 
for  those  on  whom  the  blow  fell  was  no  doubt 
acute.  But  we  can  endure  suffering  if  we  know 
that  good  will  come  out  of  it  in  the  long  run. 
The  whole  inspiration  of  the  martyrs  has  come 
from  this  conviction.  The  preacher's  function  is 
to  assure  the  tried  and  tempted  ones  that  their 
sufferings  are  not  in  vain. 

There  is  something  more  here  than  the  cold 
comfort  got  from  the  law  of  nature  which  sacri- 
fices the  individual  for  the  good  of  the  race.  The 
process,  which  is  careful  of  the  type  but  which 
seems  so  careless  of  the  individual,  is  undoubtedly 
a  part  of  the  divine  plan.  But  for  His  sentient 
and  rational  children  the  Heavenly  Father  has 
more.  He  makes  them  perfect  through  suffer- 
ing. The  virtues  and  graces  of  the  truly  reli- 
gious life  could  not  come  to  birth  except  through 
pain  and  privation.  The  larger  plan  does  not 
preclude  consideration  for  the  individual.  The 
captivity  of  Israel  was  a  means  for  lifting  the 
race  to  a  higher  conception  of  religion.      But 


THE  PROPHET'S  FUNCTION        85 

Israel  itself  was  raised  to  a  higher  plane  by  its 
experience. 

The  pangs  suffered  by  the  captive  Israelites 
are  not  fully  accounted  for  by  their  ignorance  of 
the  divine  plan.  A  second  element  was  the  keen 
sense  of  sin  developed  by  their  misfortunes.  In 
the  earlier  days  they  had  often  been  reminded  by 
their  prophets  that  the  covenant  between  them 
and  their  God  implied  obligations  on  their  part. 
With  what  must  have  seemed  monotonous  insist- 
ence these  preachers  had  warned  them  that  if 
they  persisted  in  their  evil  ways  God  would  cast 
them  off.  So  long  as  the  punishment  was  de- 
layed, the  message  fell  on  deaf  ears.  But  with 
the  fall  of  Jerusalem  a  great  revulsion  of  feeling 
came  over  the  people.  Instead  of  the  over-con- 
fidence which  had  possessed  them,  they  fell  into 
despair.  They  said  as  we  read  in  Ezekiel :  "  Our 
bones  are  dried  up  and  our  hope  is  lost;  we 
are  clean  cut  off."  To  meet  this  state  of  mind 
the  whole  tone  of  the  prophetic  preaching 
changed.  Where  stern  rebuke  had  been,  we  find 
the  tenderest  consolation.  The  assurance  of  for- 
giveness becomes  as  prominent  as  had  been  the 
threat  of  punishment.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
our  prophet  dwells  so  on  the  forgiving  love  of 
God :  "  I  have  blotted  out  as  a  cloud  thy  trans- 
gressions and  as  a  thick  mist  thy  sins."  So  far 
from  the  patience  of  God  having  been  exhausted 
and  His  love  turned  to  hate,  it  was  precisely  now 
that  His  patience  was  becoming  most  manifest  and 


86  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

His  love  most  ready  to  help.  Nay,  the  very  sense 
of  sin  which  might  deepen  to  despair  was  the 
pledge  of  His  presence :  "  I  dwell  in  the  high  and 
holy  place,  with  him  also  that  is  of  a  contrite 
and  humble  spirit,  to  revive  the  spirit  of  the 
humble  and  to  revive  the  heart  of  the  con- 
trite." With  such  assurances  the  prophet  gave 
his  depressed  countrymen  a  garland  for  ashes, 
and  a  garment  of  praise  for  the  spirit  of  heavi- 
ness. 

But  we  have  not  yet  exhausted  the  misery  of 
the  exiles'  situation.  What  galled  them  most  was 
the  sense  that  they  were  no  longer  free.  In  their 
own  land  they  had  at  least  been  their  own  mas- 
ters—  in  Babylon  they  were  under  the  will  of 
others.  In  material  resources  Babylonia  com- 
pared favorably  with  Israel.  It  is  not  certain 
that  the  exiles  were  worse  off  in  the  comforts  of 
life  than  they  had  been  in  their  own  land.  But 
to  the  noble  mind  the  luxury  of  a  king's  palace 
has  no  charms  if  it  implies  subjection  to  the  will 
of  another.  Better  the  lot  of  a  peasant  in  one's 
own  land  than  that  of  a  pampered  menial  in  a 
foreign  country. 

We  understand  in  view  of  this  state  of  things 
why  our  author  emphasizes  as  part  of  his  mission 
the  proclaiming  of  liberty  to  the  captives  and  the 
opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound. 
We  need  not  take  his  words  too  literally ;  very  few 
if  any  of  the  exiles  were  in  prison  or  in  fetters. 
What  he  meant  to  address  was  the  state  of  mind 


THE  PROPHET'S  FUNCTION       87 

of  those  who  felt  that  they  were  no  longer  their 
own  masters.  To  these  he  brings  the  assurance 
of  freedom.  In  part,  no  doubt,  he  gave  the  as- 
surance of  a  literal  deliverance  from  exile  and  a 
return  to  their  own  land.  But  in  part  he  had  in 
mind  the  profound  truth  that  the  Lord's  freeman 
is  no  longer  slave  to  any  one,  no  matter  what  his 
outward  condition  might  be. 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 
Nor  iron  bars  a  cage." 

It  is  noticeable  that  throughout  this  book  the 
prophet  uses  the  term  "  servant "  of  Israel,  as 
though  to  say:  God's  servant  and  therefore  not 
in  servitude  to  any  human  master.  It  is  God  who 
speaks  and  says:  Though  to  appearance  you 
are  in  bondage  to  the  Babylonians,  what  matters 
it?  In  fact,  you  are  My  servants  accomplishing 
My  work,  and  destined  to  a  glorious  emancipa- 
tion. 

But  the  ultimate  question  is  still  to  be  an- 
swered. Granted  all  that  has  been  said  about 
true  service  and  true  freedom,  can  we  go  farther 
and  discover  what  end  God  Himself  has  in  bring- 
ing these  despised  exiles  into  His  service?  The 
prophet,  at  any  rate,  is  not  in  doubt,  for  he  adds 
as  the  supreme  reason :  That  they  may  be  called 
trees  of  righteousness.  What  he  means  is  that 
the  supreme  values  in  the  sight  of  God  are  moral 
values.  To  this  end  He  is  disciplining  His  serv- 
ants that  He  may  develop  in  them  the  virtues 


88  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

which  alone  ennoble  men  and  make  them  more 
than  the  beasts.  To  this  end  He  gave  Israel  to 
the  conqueror,  that  they  might  gain  just  this 
higher  knowledge  of  Him,  might  taste  the  sweets 
of  forgiveness  and  find  the  blessedness  of  His 
service  —  that  service  which  is  perfect  freedom. 

We  have  now  defined  to  ourselves  the  concep- 
tion of  religion  as  it  was  held  by  a  man  of  spirit- 
ual insight  twenty-five  hundred  years  ago.  It 
remains  to  ask  whether  his  conception  has  vitality 
enough  to  survive  through  these  centuries.  It 
would,  of  course,  be  insincere  on  our  part  to  claim 
that  our  life  is  only  a  Babylonish  captivity,  that 
we  are  miserable  wretches  banished  from  our 
home.  The  most  of  us  do  not  feel  this  to  be  the 
case,  and  we  find  it  difficult  to  enter  into  the  mind 
of  many  sincere  Christians  who  in  past  times 
bewailed  the  miserable  lot  in  which  they  found 
themselves.  There  is  much  good  in  life  and  we 
receive  it  joyfully  as  our  Father's  gift.  Cheer- 
fully we  take  the  work  given  us  to  do  and  find 
satisfaction  in  it.  To  this  extent  we  may  claim 
that  the  religion  of  t"he  prophet  has  nothing  to 
teach  us. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  all  of  us  have  times 
when  we  feel  the  need  of  the  message  spoken  to 
the  exiles  of  so  long  ago.  And  our  need  comes 
from  the  same  sort  of  experiences  which  the  exiles 
had.  We  are  in  perplexity  because  our  tradi- 
tional view  of  God  is  inadequate ;  we  are  discour- 


THE  PROPHET'S  FUNCTION         89 

aged  because  we  find  ourselves  under  the  con- 
demnation of  our  own  consciences;  we  are 
hampered  by  circumstances  which  we  cannot  con- 
trol and  which  threaten  to  control  us.  We  need 
the  minister  of  religion  to  do  for  us  what  the 
prophet  of  old  did  for  the  exiled  Israelites. 

First  of  all  we  need  him  to  purify  and  elevate 
our  idea  of  God.  Our  religious  conceptions  are 
formed  under  the  influence  of  a  tradition.  But 
tradition  notoriously  holds  on  to  ideas  and  cus- 
toms which  have  been  outgrown.  If  our  reli- 
gious conceptions  are  to  be  a  living  part  of  our- 
selves they  must  grow  with  us.  Our  religious 
teacher  must  come  to  our  help  here.  He  must 
show  us  the  largeness  of  the  divine  plan,  correct 
unworthy  ideas  of  God,  and  bring  our  religious 
thinking  to  a  higher  level.  Then  he  must  deal 
with  the  sense  of  sin.  This  sense  is  undoubtedly 
much  less  acute  than  it  once  was.  We  have  diffi- 
culty in  realizing  the  frame  of  mind  with  which 
our  forefathers  confessed  that  they  were  miser- 
able offenders.  We  might  think  that  the 
preacher  ought  to  stimulate  this  sense,  sensitise 
the  conscience.  This  is,  in  fact,  a  part  of  his 
work.  But  we  are  dealing  now  with  the  depress- 
ing and  enervating  sense  of  sin  which  is  still  expe- 
rienced by  some  souls.  There  is  such  a  state  of 
mind  and  it  cuts  the  nerve  of  effort.  To  those 
who  suffer  from  this  morbid  conscience  the  min- 
ister of  religion  has  a  message.     He  has  the  right 


90  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

to  give  assurance  of  forgiveness,  to  point  to  the 
love  of  God,  to  call  to  a  renewed  effort  in  the 
direction  of  right  living. 

Perhaps  more  than  all  else  we  need  the  help  of 
religion  in  view  of  the  limitations  of  life.  One 
of  the  most  pathetic  things  in  human  life  is  the 
sight  of  a  bold  aspiring  spirit  constantly  baffled 
and  thwarted  by  circumstances.  All  of  us  have 
listened  with  amusement  and  at  the  same  time  with 
something  like  pity  to  a  bright  boy  planning  for 
his  future.  He  is  going  to  make  a  great  fortune 
and  own  houses  and  ships  and  all  that  heart  can 
wish.  Or  he  is  going  to  be  a  great  statesman 
and  occupy  the  White  House.  Or,  perhaps,  he 
will  be  a  soldier  and  wade  through  seas  of  blood, 
making  some  good  cause  triumph,  and  handing 
down  to  posterity  a  name  that  shall  never  die. 
When  he  is  a  man  he  will  be  free  and  do  all  things 
that  heart  can  suggest.  You  know  how  he  will 
be  undeceived.  His  best  efforts  will  give  him 
small  riches  and  smaller  fame.  Even  if  he  sets 
his  heart  on  spiritual  values  he  falls  far  short  of 
his  ideal.  The  slave  of  circumstances  he  calls 
himself  —  buffeted  and  beaten  by  an  adverse  for- 
tune. With  an  ancient  preacher  of  pessimism  he 
declares:  All  is  emptiness  and  a  striving  after 
wind. 

And  again  religion  comes  to  our  help.  It 
shows  that  only  the  slavish  mind  is  a  slave;  that 
the  limitations  of  life  are  not  bonds  and  fetters. 
They   are  the   discipline   of   a  wise   and   loving 


THE  PROPHET'S  FUNCTION       91 

Father  Who  knows  best  how  to  train  His  children 
in  nobility  and  self-sacrifice.  For,  after  all, 
these  are  the  great  things.  Ethical  values  are 
the  true  values.  No  man  is  a  slave  who  is  master 
of  himself.  No  life  is  a  failure  which  exempli- 
fies fidelity,  and  self-control,  and  kindliness. 
This  is  the  message  of  the  preacher,  eternally 
true  and  eternally  in  need  of  enforcement. 


VII 

JESUS'  DOCTRINE  OF 
SALVATION 

FBANCIS  A.  CHRISTIE 


JESUS'  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION 

Many  brief  words  of  Jesus  have  an  inexhausti- 
ble fulness.  In  a  simple  phrase  he  could  com- 
press the  meaning  of  all  duty,  all  hope,  all  faith, 
all  destiny.  "  Be  ye  perfect  as  your  Father  in 
heaven  is  perfect:"  all  the  beliefs  and  aspirations 
of  a  complete  system  of  spiritual  religion  may  be 
found  condensed  and  implicated  in  that  appeal. 
Love  God  with  your  whole  being  and  your  neigh- 
bor as  yourself:  from  this,  too,  perspectives  of 
meaning  radiate  to  embrace  infinity.  So  again 
all  the  Christian  thought  may  be  found  in  his 
primal  and  constant  demand:  Seek  ye  first  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  The  words  enfold  the  fulness 
of  man's  spiritual  possibilities,  the  totality  of 
God's  beneficence.  They  are  a  definition  of  duty 
and  yet  also  a  statement  of  the  way  of  salvation. 
They  mean  that  salvation  comes  through  finding 
and  pursuing  the  supreme  purpose  appointed  by 
God.  Perhaps  we  hesitate  to  think  that  this  is 
so.  To  be  saved  through  fidelity  to  purpose 
would  seem  to  mean  that  man  saves  himself  by  will 
and  effort,  while  all  the  great  saints  have  known 
and  taught  that  salvation  is  the  gift  of  God. 
But  in  reality  there  is  no  dissonance  between  the 
mandate  to  moral  toil  and  the  rich  promise  of  the 
grace  of  God.  It  is,  indeed,  a  problem  to  dis- 
tinguish what  is  human  and  what  divine  and  to 
find  a  formula  for  uniting  them,  but  what  is  para- 
95 


96  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

dox  for  our  thinking  is  not  always  conflict  in 
experience.  My  life  is  mine,  my  self  is  mine ;  but 
my  life  and  my  self  are  intimately,  mysteriously 
related  to  a  divine  life  which  is  the  fountain  of 
all  being.  What  we  do  and  attain  is  a  mingling 
of  our  effort  with  the  forces  of  the  divine  life  in 
which  we  have  our  being.  We  are  ever  depend- 
ent. Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread,  we  cry. 
Give  us  help,  light,  joy,  peace.  We  depend 
upon  the  grace  of  God.  But  we  are  active  de- 
pendents. If  we  do  not  seek,  we  find  not.  We 
must  ask  and  make  effort  to  obtain.  God's 
bounty  diffused  in  the  great  system  of  the  world 
brings  us  our  daily  bread,  but  we  must  earn  it. 
Light  and  beauty  and  joy  are  to  be  had  from 
God,  but  they  come  not  to  any  sluggish  and  pas- 
sive man.  They  come  to  the  active  and  pursuant 
spirit.  The  apostle  who  speaks  of  salvation  as 
the  gift  of  God  enjoins  us  to  work  out  our  salva- 
tion. Human  endeavor  and  God's  free  giving 
meet  in  the  good  we  win.  We  need  to  know  far 
more  than  man  yet  knows  of  the  mystery  of  per- 
sonal life,  before  we  can  divide  for  thought  the 
elements  that  make  one  thing  in  experience. 

"  Draw  if  thou  canst  the  mystic  line 
Severing  rightly  his  from  thine, 
Which  is  human,  which  divine." 

Let  us  not  hesitate  to  dwell  as  we  need  on  the 
human  side  of  our  supreme  expectation  and  to 


JESUS'  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION      97 

understand  the  human   conditions  of  its  attain- 
ment. 

Nothing  is  good  save  in  relation  to  a  purpose. 
A  thing  is  good  only  as  it  is  good  for  something, 
good  to  serve  a  valued  purpose.  When  a  thing 
fits  no  purpose  it  is  for  us  neither  good  nor  bad ; 
it  is  indifferent.  Of  a  man  we  demand  that  he 
shall  serve  some  end.  Of  a  man  the  worst  that 
can  be  said  is  that  he  is  good  for  nothing.  That 
means  that  manhood  is  gone  from  him,  that  he  is 
a  mere  useless  thing.  Manhood  implies  will,  and 
will  involves  an  aim  and  goal.  You  are  virtuous 
if  you  faithfully  pursue  a  right  purpose.  You 
are  a  sinner  if  you  let  your  good  purpose  go  and 
drift  with  any  random  impulse.  Sin  is  disloyalty 
to  the  good  you  meant  to  be.  He  is  saved  from 
sin  who  is  engrossed  by  an  all-controlling  purpose 
which  is  seen  to  be  God's  full  intention  for  him. 
He  is  saved  whose  life  is  whole  and  unimpaired 
in  the  enactment  of  good,  and  wholeness  means 
organization,  a  bringing  of  all  the  thoughts  and 
impulses  and  feelings  into  order  and  harmony. 
The  thoughts  and  impulses  and  feelings  all  have 
their  proper  right.  In  the  state  which  we  call 
salvation  they  have  found  their  due  place,  since 
they  are  serving  our  true  purpose,  a  purpose 
which  is  true  because  it  is  God's  intention.  An 
ordered,  harmonious,  organized  life,  organized 
by  the  principle  that  God  sets  as  the  supreme 
aim  for  us,  this  surely  is  the  supreme  life,  the 


98  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

blessed  life,  the  saved  life.  It  is  the  aimless  life 
that  is  lost.  Imagine,  if  you  have  not  known,  a 
succession  of  listless  and  empty  days  without  an 
end  in  view,  hours  of  mere  random  and  capricious 
and  fleeting  impulses  without  steady  intentions, 
without  unity  of  meaning.  When  the  eye  is  not 
single  the  whole  body  is  full  of  forlorn  dark- 
ness. Gone  are  the  bright  beckoning  hopes, 
gone  the  alluring  prospects,  gone  the  satisfied 
memory,  the  zest  of  achievement,  the  joy  of  ef- 
fort, the  blessedness  of  sacrifice,  the  triumph  of 
work.  When  the  mind  cannot  hold  to  a  purpose, 
the  result  is  a  disorganized,  disintegrated  and 
wretchedly  unhappy  existence.  Not  only  does 
such  a  life  pall  and  grow  irksome  for  very  lack  of 
meaning,  but  it  makes  the  man  unserviceable  to 
others.  We  are  useful  to  others  only  when 
we  show  constancy  and  efficiency,  only  when  oth- 
ers from  a  knowledge  of  our  aims  and  our  faith- 
fulness can  depend  upon  us  and  forecast  our 
action.  And  how  perilous  the  aimless  life !  Im- 
pulses and  feelings  are  unrelated  and  unharmon- 
ized.  They  live,  each  for  itself,  in  a  kind  of 
anarchy.  Each  is  a  tyrant  for  the  moment. 
The  man  is  not  free.  He  is  dominated  by  the 
passing  mood.     He  is  the  slave  of  impulse. 

Every  student  knows  the  value  of  an  aim  for 
the  life  of  the  mind.  One  may  have  a  certain 
vivacity  of  mind  that  is  fruitless  and  insufficient 
because  it  is  not  concentrated  by  a  steady  pur- 
suit.    There  may  be  a  sensitive  intelligence  and 


JESUS'  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION       99 

a  brilliant  capacity  for  penetrating  intuitions, 
and  yet  for  lack  of  the  co-ordination  that  a 
definite  purpose  brings,  the  random  play  of  mind 
comes  to  nothing.  A  far  inferior  talent  may 
end  in  more  productive  accomplishment  and  hap- 
pier satisfaction  because  it  is  steadily  devoted  to 
a  single  field  of  study,  working  systematically  to 
bring  all  the  facts  into  proper  array,  to  discover 
those  facts  that  will  fill  out  the  empty  gaps,  and 
to  possess  the  whole  as  an  organized  and  con- 
structed knowledge  with  consistency  of  meaning 
from  end  to  end.  That  is  what  we  call  scientific 
knowledge,  a  knowledge  of  things  in  their  total 
relations,  and  it  is  the  only  satisfactory  and  per- 
manently useful  knowledge.  It  is  purpose  that 
wins  this  unity  and  organization  and  effective- 
ness. Perhaps  at  school  we  found  ourselves  list- 
less and  distrustful  of  our  powers.  What  we 
had  studied  seemed  gone  from  us.  It  was  not  at 
our  command.  But  suddenly  we  are  given  a 
theme,  set  to  work  out  a  theory,  to  solve  a  prob- 
lem, to  explain  an  idea.  Then  we  begin  to  be 
alive  instead  of  listless.  All  our  mental  resources 
begin  to  bear  upon  that  definite  point.  Our 
memory  begins  to  yield  buried  stores  of  knowl- 
edge, our  power  of  invention  is  stimulated,  imag- 
ination plays  actively  about  the  subject.  We  are 
often  surprised  at  the  unsuspected  wealth  and 
worth  of  what  the  purpose  elicits  from  us.  We 
are  roused  and  animated  and  sustained  by  happy 
interest.     In  the  listless  and  aimless  hour  we  felt 


100  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

a  growing  weariness;  now  we  make  prolonged 
effort  without  fatigue.  The  mind  glows  with 
health  and  conscious  vigor.  The  definite  pur- 
pose was  the  condition  of  this  healthful  and 
happy  and  efficient  activity. 

Every  household  knows  this  truth.  You  set  for 
yourself  the  purpose  of  building  a  family  home. 
Then  the  day's  work  ceases  to  be  drudgery,  for  it 
has  a  goal.  You  no  longer  have  to  struggle 
against  fickle  desires  of  idle  amusement  or  useless 
expenditure.  You  control  whims  and  set  a  law 
to  appetites,  for  you  have  a  precious  purpose 
to  accomplish.  You  propose  to  educate  your 
child ;  then  how  light  is  the  burden  of  sacrifice  and 
self-denial,  for  your  heart  is  set  upon  a  good 
that  requires  them.  Self-denials  cease  to  be  evils 
since  they  are  steps  to  good.  Any  good  purpose 
gives  you  control  over  your  life.  It  moralizes 
you.  It  saves  you  from  the  tyranny  of  impulse. 
It  regulates  habit.  It  confines  every  natural  in- 
clination to  its  temperate  and  proper  place. 

What,  then,  if  you  should  find  the  supreme 
purpose,  that  which  has  absolute  and  complete 
worth  for  you,  that  which  claims  sovereignty 
over  all  your  powers,  the  purpose  whose  fulfil- 
ment would  be  your  highest  satisfaction,  the  one 
which  would  bestow  a  completely  true  and  proper 
proportion  on  all  your  inclinations,  the  one  that 
evokes  all  your  energies  into  freest  play,  cement- 
ing you  into  closest  unison  with  all  your  fellows, 
crowning  your  own  personal  existence  with  the 


JESUS'  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION      101 

highest  significance  and  serving  as  the  goal  of 
all  the  social  organization  of  mankind.  If  God 
should  reveal  that  supreme  purpose  to  you,  and 
if  it  should  engage  and  dominate  your  soul,  you 
would  be  saved  indeed.  Even  though  it  should 
not  possess  and  control  you  at  every  moment, 
though  it  mould  not  every  action  and  fail  to  reg- 
ulate every  affection,  though  you  achieve  no  per- 
fect and  unrelaxing  obedience  to  its  demands; 
still,  even  in  your  imperfection  and  failure,  the 
knowledge  of  this  great  aim  and  purpose  of  your 
life  would  be  an  immeasurable  gain.  It  would 
give  insight  and  wisdom.  It  would  show  what 
place  and  proportion  your  various  needs  and 
wishes  must  assume  if  they  are  to  serve  the  end 
which  gives  them  their  true  law.  Every  interest 
would  be  seen  from  the  height  of  the  supreme 
standard.  Having  the  highest  measure  of  all 
duties  you  would  understand  your  duty  in  per- 
plexing situations.  You  would  be  emancipated 
from  the  frivolous  and  petty  standards  of  a 
world  absorbed  in  things  seen,  immediate  and 
transient.  You  would  comprehend  ideals.  Your 
tasks  would  be  illuminated  by  the  vision  of  the 
mount.  Your  soul  would  have  the  widest  hori- 
zons. In  your  secluded  and  narrow  vale  of  life, 
you  would  be  mindful  of  the  vast,  perfect,  beauti- 
ful entirety  which  outspreads  it  and  is  its  sover- 
eign realm.  You  would  see  your  life  as  God  in- 
tends it. 

Christ   declares   to   us   this   supreme   purpose. 


10#  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

The  religion  of  Jesus  was  devotion  to  this  su- 
preme standard  and  intention.  The  religion  of 
Jesus  demands  that  here  and  now,  in  every  mo- 
ment, in  every  thought  and  feeling  and  choice, 
we  shall  live  according  to  the  demands  of  that 
purpose  which  utters  the  divine  intention  for  life. 
Jesus  does  not  cancel  any  natural  need  or  striv- 
ing. He  knew  that  man  needs  bread  and  raiment 
and  rest  and  relaxation.  He  affirms  that  God's 
bounty  provides  all  these  things,  not  as  ends  in 
themselves,  but  as  subsidiary  and  contributive 
good.  Seek  the  supreme  purpose  and  all  these 
things  shall  be  added  unto  you.  Seek  first  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  That  kingdom  awaits  you  — 
make  new  your  life  for  that.  Be  ready  for  it 
now.  Watch  and  be  ready  for  the  hour  when  it 
shall  dawn.  Set  your  heart  upon  it.  Count  it 
your  treasure  of  gold,  your  jewel  of  priceless 
worth.  Live  by  that  kingdom's  law.  Be  ready 
for  its  perfections  now.  And  the  appealing  and 
unforgetable  thing  in  the  record  of  Jesus  is  that 
he  accepted  and  interpreted  all  the  tragedies  of 
his  lot  as  contained  in  the  wisdom  and  beneficence 
of  the  Father's  great  purpose  for  the  lives  of  His 
children.  Jesus  lived  and  Jesus  taught  a  heroic, 
daring  idealism  of  trust  in  this  supreme  intention 
of  the  divine  goodness. 

Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  of  God !  The  seek- 
ing lifts  us  very  near  to  God.  Such  yearning 
sees  and  seeks  a  life  wherein  all  spirits  together 
enact  the  justice  and  benevolence  which  is  the 


JESUS'  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION     103 

character  of  God.  It  discerns  a  vision  of  a  fam- 
ily of  men  who  mirror  in  their  disposition  and 
action  the  perfection  and  the  beauty  of  the  di- 
vine good  will.  It  seeks  a  life  where  all  animosi- 
ties are  hushed  in  tender  loyalty,  where  all  the 
strife  between  "  mine  "  and  "  thine  "  dies  in  the 
happy  strain  of  "  ours,"  where  all  the  cruelty 
and  selfishness  have  passed  away  and  the  long- 
prayed-for  peace  of  God  enfolds  the  world  with 
its  serenity  and  rest ;  where  the  sweet  affection  of 
the  home  has  expanded  into  a  wide  and  ardent 
love  of  each  and  all,  filling  life  with  new  and  in- 
tenser  joy  such  as  we  scarce  dream  of  in  this  trou- 
bled state.  That  is  a  life  where  the  precious 
boons  of  knowledge  or  any  noble  good  are  shared 
by  all,  where  doubtless  the  stumbling-blocks  and 
hindrances  and  blighting  failures  that  now  cum- 
ber the  path  shall  be  banished  by  the  full  knowl- 
edge and  the  bounteous  skill  and  unstinted  affec- 
tion of  the  perfect  state.  It  will  be  a  world  made 
new  by  a  complete  pervasion  of  the  divine  life, 
and  the  hearts  that  now  are  mournful  shall  sing 
their  thankfulness  to  Him  who  is  the  fountain  of 
such  love  and  joy. 

Christian,  your  citizenship  is  in  that  heaven. 
Your  heart  burns  within  you  when  you  hear  of 
it.  The  vision  of  it  compels  and  necessitates 
you.  It  is  your  soul's  desire  and  your  soul's  law. 
All  your  duties  are  faint  f oreshadowings  of  that 
sublime  duty.  All  your  cravings  are  the  partial 
longings  of  that  one  perfect  desire.     When  you 


104  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

behold  it,  your  spirit  throbs  in  responsive  self- 
surrender  to  its  claims.  There  is  your  great 
sovereign  purpose,  the  purpose  that  gives  mean- 
ing to  all  these  fragments  of  life,  the  purpose 
that  evokes  your  highest  powers  and  feeds  you 
with  enduring  strength  and  inspires  you  to  pa- 
tient heroism  and  unlamenting  self-denials,  the 
purpose  that  gives  wholeness,  vigor,  consistency, 
health  to  all  striving  and  reveals  the  due  measure 
and  degree  of  the  present  occupations,  the  pur- 
pose that  generates  a  holy  and  heavenly  spirit  in 
you  and  enables  you  to  be  a  fountain  of  faith  to 
the  weary  and  despairing,  of  comfort  to  those 
that  sit  in  loneliness,  of  hope  to  those  that  are 
blighted  and  ashamed. 

Where  will  this  great  fulfilment  be  and  when? 
Will  it  be  on  the  earth  or  only  in  higher  man- 
sions of  God?  Is  this  the  destiny  only  of  some 
far-off  generation  in  the  future  of  earthly  his- 
tory, or  shall  I,  too,  inherit  this  desire  of  the  soul 
when  my  days  are  told  and  I  pass  hence  from  the 
present  work  and  the  voices  sweet  to  hear  and 
the  lingering  handclasps  of  human  love?  When 
these  questions  are  asked,  the  soul  that  asks  them 
gives  answer  with  passionate  faith.  We  trust 
the  instinct  and  prophecy  of  our  deepest  nature 
even  though  an  exact  knowledge  of  all  the  where 
and  when  and  how  is  denied  us.  That  perfect 
world  is  the  goal  for  all  the  earthly  history  that 
shall  be.  The  deep  inevitable  law  of  our  being 
is  to  live  for  the  social  weal  and  only  that  vision 


JESUS'  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION      105 

of  love  and  sonship  which  Jesus  names  the  realm 
of  God  has  the  right  to  be  a  social  order.  That 
perfect  world  is  goal  and  destiny  for  you  and  me 
and  every  one,  though  the  perfect  welfare  of 
earthly  history  be  postponed  to  incalculable  dis- 
tance, for  only  that  perfect  order  has  sovereignty 
of  right  over  me  now  or  ever.  In  its  binding 
sovereignty  we  read  our  prophecies.  Wherever 
it  may  lie,  that  goal  is  authoritative  and  challeng- 
ing to  every  moment  of  personal  existence. 
Wherever  its  perfect  realization  may  be,  whether 
on  earth  or  in  modes  of  existence  veiled  from 
view,  it  is  the  law  of  life  now,  we  are  related  to 
it  now,  it  is  the  soul's  yearning  now  and  every 
partial  realization  of  its  life  in  the  fleeting  mo- 
ments of  our  purest  good  is  the  joy  above  all 
other  present  joy.  The  many  questions  left 
without  clear  and  definite  answer,  escaping  our 
power  to  picture  and  imagine  the  reality  which 
our  faith  asserts,  these  incessant  and  unsatisfied 
questions  mean  only  that  the  one  life  we  know 
is  not  described  and  expressed  and  bounded  by 
conceptions  that  lie  on  the  plane  of  knowledge. 
What  we  know  with  the  exactness  of  science  is  a 
knowledge  of  the  forces  in  nature's  determinism 
that  we  must  use  for  the  practical  control  of  that 
mechanism  of  nature.  Yet  even  here,  as  we  are 
well  aware,  we  deal  with  an  abstracted  part  and 
not  the  whole  of  reality.  We  abstract  this  play 
of  interrelated  forces  in  order  to  use  it  for  our 
practical  needs,  but  we  leave  aside  from  our  sci- 


106  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

ence  a  wealth  of  perception  and  human  response 
to  it  that  cannot  be  reduced  to  knowledge  exact 
and  clear.  This  scene  before  us  from  which  our 
science  selects  what  it  needs  is  not  bare  energy 
and  naked  mechanism.  It  is  force  robed  in 
beauty.  Its  magnitudes  and  quantities  are  given 
to  us  in  a  spectacle  of  undulating  hills  and  misty 
valleys,  of  clouds  that  gather  and  vanish  like 
beautiful  dreams  over  the  repose  of  forest  and 
meadow,  of  seas  that  mirror  and  absorb  the  blue 
of  heaven.  The  power  which  our  science  meas- 
ures and  weighs  is  clothed  with  qualities  that 
mock  measurement,  qualities  that  make  it  more 
than  mere  power  and  waken  in  us,  as  mere  power 
could  never  do,  a  delight  that  may  rise  to  adora- 
tion and  to  love,  as  if  soul  and  spirit  there  were 
speaking  to  our  soul  and  spirit.  Even  on  the 
level  plane  of  knowledge  we  are  responsive  to  a 
whole  which  outruns  knowledge,  a  whole  which  no 
poet  could  ever  quite  utter,  no  painter  could  fully 
render.  So,  too,  we  are  related  to  a  realm  and  an 
infinitude  which  rises  far  above  this  level  plane 
of  our  perception,  and  never  yields  itself  in  the 
clear  and  measurable  forms  of  knowledge.  Yet 
all  the  while  it  draws  us  and  wields  us  and  sways 
us  with  the  power  of  right  and  duty  and  worth. 
We  express  it  and  voice  it  in  the  terms  of  what  we 
have  known  and  perceived,  yet  we  are  ever  ready 
to  acknowledge  that  our  apprehension  is  scant 
and  our  expression  inadequate.  If  we  make  it 
an  external  picture,  an  external  theory,  we  have 


JESUS'  DOCTRINE  OF  SALVATION      10? 

an  incurable  discontent  with  the  form  and  image. 
That  is  finite  and  partial  while  we  are  seeking  a 
life  eternal  and  infinite  and  complete  for  the 
yearnings  of  the  deepest  self.  There  is  ever  a 
beyond  not  fully  conceivable,  a  fulness  not  all 
attainable,  yet  ever  real  to  the  best  and  deepest  in 
our  own  being.  We  are  ever  reforming  the  utter- 
ance of  that  Beyond  that  beckons  to  our  hopes 
and  efforts.  The  very  idea  of  it  has  had  its  his- 
tor}\  It  has  grown,  been  expanded,  been  spiritu- 
alized. It  is  no  more  for  us  the  simple  expectancy 
of  fat  flocks  and  fruitful  fields,  and  wealth  from 
tributary  foes.  It  means  now  the  highest  fulfil- 
ment of  a  spiritual  personality  that  has  put  all 
material  things  under  its  feet.  It  is  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  a  life  in  the  image  of  the  unexhausted  di- 
vine life.  God  unveils  Himself  in  this  sole  su- 
preme and  sovereign  purpose  of  all  personal  life. 
God  reveals  His  sovereignty  in  its  authority  and 
allurement.  God  communes  with  man  through  the 
commerce  which  this  appealing  destiny  has  with 
man's  own  need  and  longing  and  self -surrender. 
Here  is  that  real  presence  of  God  which  all  reli- 
gions struggle  to  conceive  and  express.  Jesus 
holds  up  before  us  that  real  presence,  as  in 
the  solemn  ritual  the  priest  elevates  the  sacred 
host,  as  the  very  body  of  God.  Jesus  holds  up 
before  us  that  real  presence  in  a  commanding  be- 
hest. It  is  no  mere  word  of  spoken  precept.  It 
is  the  felt  pressure  upon  our  personal  being  of 
the  divine  life  in  which  our  being  shall  find  its 


108  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

perfection.  It  moulds  our  desires  and  intentions, 
it  transfigures  earthly  life  to  the  likeness  of  that 
heavenly  realm  where  the  will  of  God  is  done  in 
swift,  unhindered  spontaneity  of  love.  The 
Christian's  chief  prayer  is,  Thy  Kingdom  come, 
Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  in  heaven. 


VIII 
THE  TRUE  ATONEMENT 

WILLIAM  H.  FISH 


THE  TRUE  ATONEMENT 

"From  Japan  to  Peru,"  says  Gibbon,  "  the 
use  of  sacrifice  has  universally  prevailed  " ;  ancf 
we  find  the  assertion  supported  by  a  mass  of  evi- 
dence drawn  from  the  religious  observances  of 
races  and  nations  in  the  most  diverse  stages  of 
culture,  and  separated  by  the  widest  intervals  of 
space  and  time.  For  example,  the  ancient 
Greeks,  as  we  know,  celebrated  great  occasions 
by  sacrificing  a  hundred  oxen  —  a  hecatomb,  as 
they  called  it.  The  Mandan  Indians  were  accus- 
tomed to  burn  the  first  kettleful  of  green  corn  as 
an  offering  to  the  Great  Spirit  before  the  feast 
began,  and  the  Zulus,  of  South  Africa,  burn  in- 
cense in  connection  with  a  portion  of  a  slaugh- 
tered beast.  The  Jewish  ritual  provides  with 
great  elaborateness  of  detail,  as  every  reader  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  aware,  for  sacrifices  of 
various  kinds,  and  the  first  book  of  Kings  tells  us 
that  on  one  occasion  Solomon  offered  unto  the 
Lord  two  and  twenty  thousand  oxen  and  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  sheep;  nor  are  the 
prevalent  forms  of  Christianity  destitute  of  the 
sacrificial  element.  In  Bulgaria,  as  we  are  told, 
lambs,  kids,  honey  and  wine  are  solemnly  offered 
on  the  feast  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  in  order  to 
secure  good  health  to  the  children  of  the  house. 
In  every  Roman  Catholic  church  in  the  world  the 
offering  of  incense  regularly  accompanies  the 
111 


112  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

great  sacrifice  of  the  mass;  and  to  conclude  and 
crown  a  list  which  might  be  indefinitely  extended, 
according  to  the  common  doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
ment, the  death  of  Christ  is  regarded  as  a  propi- 
tiatory sacrifice  made  on  account  of  the  sins  of 
the  world. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  crude  and  grotesque  were 
many  of  the  ideas  out  of  which  such  practices 
and  beliefs  originally  sprang.  When  we  learn 
that  the  Peruvians,  like  many  other  ancient  peo- 
ple, believed  that  the  sun  literally  drank  up  and 
enjoyed  as  a  man  would  enjoy,  the  libations 
which  were  poured  out  before  him  and  were  seen 
to  diminish  from  day  to  day,  when  we  find  that 
the  Greeks  regarded  animal  sacrifices  as  the  food 
of  the  gods  in  such  a  gross  and  material  sense 
that  one  deity  was  called  the  goat-eater,  and  an- 
other the  bull-eater,  we  are  tempted  to  turn  away 
from  the  entire  circle  of  early  thought  concern- 
ing sacrifice  with  the  feeling  that  it  evinces  noth- 
ing but  the  most  amazing  ignorance  and  super- 
stition. 

But  it  would  be  a  grave  mistake  to  rest  satisfied 
with  such  a  view.  It  is  generally  safe  to  assume 
that  there  must  be  an  element  of  truth  at  the 
basis  of  every  widespread  religious  belief.  Pro- 
fessor Robertson  Smith  presents  a  great  mass 
of  evidence  in  support  of  the  theory,  that  the 
fundamental  idea  of  ancient  sacrifice  is  divine 
communion  —  the  establishment  or  confirmation 
of  a  living  bond  between  the  worshippers  and  their 


THE  TRUE  ATONEMENT         113 

god.  In  some  parts  of  the  world  even  at  the 
present  day  if  two  men  partake  of  the  smallest 
morsel  of  food  together  they  are  held  to  be 
united,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  by  a  tie  which 
it  would  be  a  shame  and  disgrace  for  either  to 
break.  In  ancient  times  it  was  perfectly  easy 
and  natural  to  extend  this  idea  into  the  religious 
domain,  and  to  believe  that  by  eating  of  the  same 
holy  flesh  of  which  a  part  was  laid  upon  the  altar 
as  "  food  of  the  deity,"  a  new  and  closer  relation 
with  the  Divine  Being  could  be  formed;  and  as 
the  blood  of  an  animal  was  thought  to  be  the  seat 
of  life,  a  specially  sacred  significance  came  to  be 
attached  to  drinking  the  blood  of  the  sacrifice  or 
sprinkling  a  portion  of  it  upon  the  worshipper 
and  a  portion  upon  the  altar  or  the  ground.  In 
this  way,  it  was  believed,  God  and  man  were  made 
partakers  of  the  same  life. 

Gross  and  material  as  all  this  is,  we  can  easily 
see  in  it  the  germs  of  a  higher  faith,  for  the  de- 
sire for  a  more  perfect  communion  with  God  and 
a  fuller  participation  in  the  divine  life  is  the 
mainspring  of  all  the  best  progress,  past,  present, 
and  still  to  come.  So  that  in  this  case,  as  in  so 
many  others,  when  we  examine  primitive  rites 
with  sufficient  care  to  discover  their  deeper  mean- 
ing, we  find  occasion  for  something  besides  con- 
tempt and  repulsion  in  our  thought  of  them. 

Our  respect  becomes  greater  when  we  consider 
the  more  advanced  stages  in  the  development  of 
the  idea  of  sacrifice.     The  sin-offerings  of  the 


114  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

Jews,  for  example,  bear  witness  to  an  awakened 
moral  sense.  They  imply  a  vivid  consciousness 
of  the  separation  from  God  which  sin  causes,  and 
the  need  of  a  restoration  of  the  broken  union. 
Through  them,  the  soul,  blindly  groping  after 
some  means  of  satisfying  the  inexorable  divine 
justice  and  escaping  from  the  torments  of  an 
awakened  conscience,  found  a  partial  and  tem- 
porary relief;  for  it  was  believed  that  though 
retribution  was  certain,  it  did  not  necessarily  fall 
upon  the  offender  himself.  God  could  not  be 
mocked,  but  His  wrath  might  be  diverted  if  an 
innocent  victim  could  be  found  to  bear  vicari- 
ously the  penalty  which  must  be  inflicted.  If  the 
law  demanded  the  shedding  of  blood,  it  had  to  be 
obeyed,  but  under  certain  conditions  it  was 
thought  to  make  no  difference  whether  the  blood 
poured  out  was  that  of  a  guilty  man  or  a  sub- 
stituted sheep.  On  the  great  day  of  Atonement, 
when  an  offering  was  made  for  the  entire  nation, 
the  scapegoat,  on  which  the  highpriest's  hand  was 
laid,  took  away  it  was  thought,  the  people's 
sins.  To  those  under  the  influence  of  this  belief 
the  subsequent  transition,  in  connection  with 
Jesus,  to  a  Lamb  of  God,  taking  away  the  sins  of 
the  world  in  the  same  sense  was  a  very  natural 
one. 

Here  again  we  see  a  strange  intermingling  of 
truth  and  error,  as  it  seems  to  us,  but  an  inter- 
mingling which  was  quite  inevitable  at  that  early 
time.     The  moral  intuition  was  there,  but  it  was 


THE  TRUE  ATONEMENT  115 

as  yet  only  partially  developed.  Men  had  begun 
to  feel  the  need  of  some  sort  of  moral  expiation 
and  atonement,  but  they  were  not  yet  able  to  see 
clearly  what  sort  would  alone  satisfy  the  require- 
ment of  the  divine  law.  We  may  perhaps  enter 
into  their  state  of  mind  by  recalling  certain  expe- 
riences of  our  own.  Who  does  not  know  the 
feeling  of  intense  dissatisfaction  which  some- 
times follows  an  unprofitably  spent  —  a  wasted 
or  worse  than  wasted  —  day  ?  Who  has  not  felt 
at  such  times  an  impulse  to  throw  all  his  energies 
into  a  single  tremendous  effort  to  make  amends 
in  a  moment  for  long  hours  of  idleness  and  self- 
indulgence  —  to  do  anything,  to  catch  at  any 
straw  that  offers  the  slightest  chance  of  escape 
from  the  oppressive  sense  of  mortification  and 
self-abasement?  We  find,  as  often  as  we  pass 
through  this  experience,  that  no  such  sudden  and 
complete  escape  is  possible,  that  there  is  no 
merely  outward  and  temporary  act  that  can  fully 
satisfy  the  demand  of  conscience  and  the  religious 
instinct,  that  our  atonement  in  order  to  be  ef- 
fectual must  be  what  the  name  implies  —  a 
genuine  at-one-ment  —  a  restoration,  through 
contrition  sufficiently  sincere  and  lasting  to  bring 
forth  satisfactory  fruits,  of  the  broken  harmony 
between  our  will  and  the  will  of  the  just  and 
righteous  God. 

Now  this  is  precisely  what  the  Hebrews  found 
in  their  experience.  At  first  in  their  newly 
awakened  sense  of  moral  separation  from  God, 


116  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

they  naturally  turned  to  the  ancient  rites  of 
their  religion  in  search  of  help.  Something  must 
be  done  to  appease  their  offended  Deity;  why 
might  not  the  sacrifice  through  which  their  fa- 
thers had  believed  it  possible  to  enter  into  phys- 
ical communion  with  him  be  used  as  a  means  of 
reestablishing  the  lost  moral  communion  also? 
Not  that  this  question  necessarily  or  even  prob- 
ably took  quite  so  definite  and  distinct  a  shape 
in  their  minds,  but  it  may  easily  have  been  one, 
at  least,  of  the  underlying  motives  which  led  them 
to  continue  to  offer  the  sacrifices  of  their  ances- 
tral worship,  only  trying  to  give  them  a  new  and 
higher  meaning.  Very  soon,  however,  the  dis- 
covery was  made  that  the  desired  end  was  not 
to  be  gained  in  that  way.  Though  rivers  of 
blood  flowed  in  the  courts  of  the  temple,  the 
burden  of  sin  was  not  removed  from  the  in- 
dividual conscience,  nor  did  the  scapegoat, 
driven  off  into  the  wilderness,  leave  behind  a  puri- 
fied nation;  and  we  find  in  various  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  indications  that  there  were  some, 
even  at  a  very  early  date,  who  saw  this  as  clearly 
as  we  can  see  it  now,  and  who  pointed  out 
even  then  the  only  true  method  of  salvation.  In 
the  first  book  of  Samuel  we  read,  "  Behold,  to 
obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken  than 
the  fat  of  rams."  Isaiah  declares  that  "  the  Lord 
delighteth  not  in  the  blood  of  bullocks  or  lambs 
or  goats,"  and  that  if  his  people  will  "  cease  to 
do  evil  and  learn  to  do  well,  though  their  sins  be 


THE  TRUE  ATONEMENT  117 

as  scarlet  they  shall  be  white  as  snow."  Micah 
gives  to  the  question,  "  Wherewith  shall  I  come 
before  the  Lord?  "  the  answer,  "  What  doth  the 
Lord  require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  and  love 
mercy,  and  walk  humbly  with  thy  God?  "  The 
Psalmist  writes,  "  Sacrifice  and  meat-offering, 
burnt-offering  and  sin-offering  thou  hast  not  re- 
quired," and  again,  "  The  sacrifices  of  God  are 
a  broken  " —  or  as  otherwise  translated,  a  trou- 
bled — "  spirit ;  a  broken  and  a  contrite  heart, 
O   God,   thou  wilt  not   despise." 

Here  we  have  the  moral  intuition  not  par- 
tially, but  fully  developed  —  recognizing  clearly 
the  utter  futility  of  all  merely  outward  means  of 
securing  divine  favor,  and  declaring  repentance 
and  obedience  to  be  the  essential,  and  the  sole 
essential  requirement.  And  although  these  were 
doubtless  at  first  exceptional  utterances,  although 
the  sacrificial  altar  was  maintained  as  long  as  the 
temple  itself  endured,  it  is  impossible  to  believe 
that  the  higher  and  more  spiritual  view,  so  dis- 
tinctly and  forcibly  proclaimed,  can  have  been  al- 
together without  effect.  Beyond  a  doubt  the  bet- 
ter part  of  the  people,  the  more  earnest  and  sin- 
cerely aspiring  among  them,  came  to  look  upon 
the  slaughter  of  doves  and  lambs  more  and  more 
in  the  light  of  a  symbolical  representation  of 
that  inner  offering  without  which  all  else  is  of  no 
avail.  It  is  only  in  this  sense,  surely  —  a  sense 
which  must  have  been  sufficiently  well  understood 
to  require  no  elaborate  explanations  —  that  Jesus 


118  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

can  have  been  willing  to  give  even  a  silent  coun- 
tenance to  the  common  rites  of  the  temple-wor- 
ship or  to  partake  of  the  paschal  lamb.  It  is  in 
this  sense  also,  as  I  believe,  that  we  must  inter- 
pret many  passages  of  the  New  Testament  on 
which  the  sacrificial  element  in  Christianity  is 
largely  based  —  passages  referring  to  Jesus  as 
the  lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of 
the  world,  and  the  like.  For  Christianity,  it 
must  be  remembered,  is  an  Oriental  religion,  and 
to  understand  its  early  records  it  is  necessary  to 
enter  into  the  Oriental  mind. 

Travelers  tell  us  that  in  visiting  to-day  the 
abode  of  an  Arab  sheik,  if  he  wishes  to  receive 
you  politely,  he  tells  you  that  his  house,  his 
family,  his  person  and  all  he  has  are  yours ;  and 
3ret  if  you  take  him  at  his  word,  and  attempt  to 
appropriate  even  the  least  of  his  possessions  at 
your  departure,  he  will  treat  you  as  a  thief. 
You  may  say  perhaps,  "  But  you  gave  me  ev- 
erything in  the  house "  he  will  answer,  "  You 
come  from  a  country  where  people  have  no  po- 
liteness ;  I  gave  these  things ;  that  means  welcome, 
and  nothing  more." 

This  difference  between  the  East  and  West  has 
often  been  pointed  out,  but  many  still  apparently 
forget  that  the  Bible  is  an  Oriental  book  and  that 
Jesus  and  the  apostles  spoke  —  and  in  order  to 
be  understood  were  obliged  to  speak  —  the  or- 
dinary language  of  their  time  and  country.  As 
a  direct  result  of  this  forgetfulness,  doctrines  are 


THE  TRUE  ATONEMENT         119 

often  derived  from  the  literal  sense  of  Scripture 
which  have  no  warrant  in  its  meaning  —  the 
meaning  that  would  have  been  conveyed  to  those 
to  whom  the  spoken  or  written  words  were  origi- 
nally addressed.  To  refer  to  a  single  conspic- 
uous instance,  on  the  declaration  of  Jesus  at  the 
Last  Supper,  "  This  is  my  body,"  the  Roman 
Catholic  church  has  founded  the  doctrine  of  the 
"  Real  Presence  " —  the  actual  transformation  of 
the  bread  of  the  Eucharist  into  the  body  of 
Christ;  though  it  could  not  possibly  have  oc- 
curred to  those  who  partook  of  the  supper  that 
they  were  literally  eating  his  body  while  he  was 
all  the  time  in  full  view  and  was  partaking  with 
them. 

In  the  same  way  the  origin  of  many  of  the 
prevalent  Protestant  ideas  in  regard  to  the  atone- 
ment, of  which  the  early  Jewish  sacrifices  have 
been  taken  as  types,  can  be  traced  to  similar  mis- 
interpretations of  figures  of  speech.  When  the 
New  Testament  writers  spoke  of  Jesus  as  a  pro- 
pitiation for  the  sins  of  his  followers,  and  as  hav- 
ing made  peace  through  the  blood  of  the  cross, 
it  is  not  likely  that  they  meant  to  be  understood 
in  the  hard  and  literal  sense  which  has  been  so 
commonly  given  to  their  words. 

"  I  am  astonished  and  appalled,"  said  Dr. 
Channing,  "  by  the  gross  manner  in  which 
Christ's  blood  is  often  spoken  of,  as  if  his  out- 
ward wounds  and  bodily  sufferings  could  con- 
tribute to   our  salvation,  as  if  aught  else  than 


120  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

his  spirit,  his  truth,  could  redeem  us.  On  other 
occasions  we  use  the  very  words  which  we  thus 
apply  to  Christ,  and  use  them  rationally.  How 
is  it  that  in  religion  we  so  readily  part  with  our 
common  sense?  For  example,  we  often  say  that 
our  liberty  was  purchased,  and  our  country  was 
saved  by  the  blood  of  the  patriots.  And  what 
do  we  mean  ?  —  that  the  material  blood  which 
gushed  from  their  bodies,  that  their  wounds,  that 
their  agonies,  saved  their  country !  No !  We 
mean  that  we  owe  our  freedom  to  men  who  loved 
their  country  more  than  life,  and  gladly  shed 
their  blood  in  its  defence.  By  their  blood  we 
mean  their  patriotism,  their  devotion  to  freedom, 
approved  in  death.  We  mean  the  principles  for 
which  they  died,  the  spirit  which  shone  forth  in 
their  self-sacrifice,  and  which  this  sacrifice  of 
their  lives  spread  abroad  and  strengthened  in  the 
community.  So  by  Christ's  blood  I  understand 
his  spirit,  his  entire  devotion  to  the  cause  of  hu- 
man virtue  and  to  the  will  of  God.  By  his  cross 
I  mean  his  celestial  love  —  I  mean  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  piety  and  righteousness  —  in  assert- 
ing which  he  died.  To  be  redeemed  by  his  blood 
is  to  be  redeemed  by  his  goodness.  In  other 
words  it  is  to  be  purified  from  all  sin,  and  restored 
to  all  virtue  by  the  principles,  the  religion,  the 
character,  the  all-conquering  love  of  Jesus 
Christ." 

I  quote  these  words   from   Channing  because 
they   set   forth   with   admirable   clearness,   as   it 


THE  TRUE  ATONEMENT         181 

seems  to  me,  the  only  rational  interpretation 
of  which,  in  the  light  of  a  pure  spiritual  Chris- 
tianity, the  phrases  in  question  are  susceptible. 
And  is  it  not  at  least  as  probable  that  some  such 
meaning  as  this  was  in  the  minds  of  the  New 
Testament  writers  when  they  used  such  phrases 
—  even  admitting  that  they  were  influenced  to  a 
considerable  extent  by  ancient  modes  of  thought 
as  well  as  expression  — ■  is  it  not  at  least  as  prob- 
able that  they  had  this  deeper  and  more  spiritual 
meaning  mainly  in  view,  as  it  is  that  they  in- 
tended to  describe  the  actual  suffering  of  the  cross 
with  its  purely  physical  tokens  as  the  effectual 
means  of  human  redemption?  Can  we  believe 
that  after  enjoying  the  great  light  of  Christ's 
life  and  teachings  which  their  help  alone  enables 
us  to  see,  they  fell  so  far  behind  the  prophets  of 
an  earlier  day  in  their  appreciation  of  the  true 
requirements  of  God? 

For  who,  according  to  the  word  of  Christ 
shall  be  saved?  He  who  trusts  in  the  merits  and 
the  blood  of  a  crucified  Redeemer?  Rather 
Zacchaeus,  who  said,  "  Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of 
my  goods  I  give  to  the  poor;  and  if  I  have 
taken  any  thing  from  any  man  by  false  accusa- 
tion, I  restore  him  fourfold."  And  Jesus  said 
unto  him,  "  This  day  is  salvation  come  to  this 
house."  The  publican,  who  would  not  lift  up 
so  much  as  his  eyes  unto  heaven,  but  smote  upon 
his  breast,  saying,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me,  a 
sinner,"  and  of  whom  Jesus  said,  "  I  tell  you 


122  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

this  man  went  down  to  his  house  justified."  The 
sinful  woman  who  poured  out  a  flood  of  repent- 
ant tears,  and  whose  great  love  Jesus  declared 
to  be  the  token  of  her  forgiveness.  The  prodi- 
gal, who  forsook  his  evil  ways  and  came  back  to 
his  father  saying,  "  Father  I  have  sinned  against 
heaven  and  in  thy  sight,  and  am  no  more  worthy 
to  be  called  thy  son."  Do  we  not  all  recognize 
these  as  typical  examples  of  Jesus'  teaching? 
And  can  we  find  in  them  a  trace  of  the  compli- 
cated thories  that  have  been  so  long  current? 

It  is  true  that  the  early  followers  of  Jesus  did 
not  always  comprehend  him.  It  is  true  that 
some  of  their  ideas  show  the  influence  of  their 
Jewish  training.  But  if  we  look  at  the  only  pas- 
sage in  the  whole  New  Testament  in  which  the 
word  atonement  occurs,  we  shall  perhaps  find 
that  they  have  not  had  entire  justice  done  them 
by  many  who  profess  to  regard  them  with  the 
greatest  reverence.  In  the  fifth  chapter  of  the 
epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Romans  we  read,  "  For 
if,  when  we  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to 
God  by  the  death  of  his  son,  much  more,  being 
reconciled,  we  shall  be  saved  by  his  life.  And 
not  only  so,  but  we  also  joy  in  God  through  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  by  whom  we  have  now  received 
the  atonement." 

Here  we  observe,  first,  that  the  reconciliation 
is  described  as  that  of  man  to  God,  and  not,  as 
certain  creeds  teach,  of  God  to  man  —  "  When  we 
were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to  God  by  the 


THE  TRUE  ATONEMENT  123 

death  of  his  son  " ;  and,  second,  that  salvation  is 
represented  as  following  reconciliation,  and  being 
effected  not  by  the  death  of  Christ,  but  by  his 
life :  —  "  Much  more  being  reconciled,  we  shall 
be  saved  by  his  life."  Does  not  this  plainly  sug- 
gest, if  it  does  not  distinctly  teach  the  simple  and 
rational  view  which  Unitarians  generally  hold, 
according  to  which,  after  being  reconciled  or 
turned  away  from  our  selfishness  and  drawn  to 
God  through  the  impression  made  by  the  abso- 
lute self-sacrifice  illustrated  in  the  death  of 
Christ,  we  are  saved  from  our  sins  and  the  con- 
sequent divine  displeasure  by  the  help,  the  guid- 
ance and  the  inspiration  of  his  life. 

I  have  dwelt  on  these  points  of  interpretation 
much  longer  than  I  intended  from  the  feeling 
that  the  New  Testament  teachings  on  this  sub- 
ject ought  to  be  rescued  from  the  perversion  to 
which  they  are,  often  unintentionally,  subjected, 
for  the  sake  of  the  essential  truth  which  they 
contain.  For  atonement  in  the  true  sense  of 
union  with  God,  represents  the  deepest  need,  the 
most  persistent  longing,  and  the  loftiest  aspira- 
tion of  the  human  soul.  We  have  seen  how  this 
longing,  vaguely  felt  even  in  the  childhood  of 
mankind,  found  expression  in  the  ancient  rites  of 
sacrifice.  We  have  seen  how  in  one  race,  at  least, 
it  gradually  gained  a  profounder  meaning  and 
became  much  more  difficult  to  satisfy.  We  have 
seen  how  even  after  the  true  method  of  satisfy- 
ing it  was  proclaimed  by  great  prophets  and  illus- 


124  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

trated  by  Jesus  Christ,  the  theories  and  ideas  of 
an  elder  day  influenced,  and  continue  to  influence 
many  minds,  and  to  keep  in  comparative  dark- 
ness some  who  have  perhaps  imagined  that  above 
all  others  they  were  the  very  children  of  light. 

And  yet  these  theories  may  not  have  been  so 
great  a  practical  hindrance,  after  all.  Just  as 
a  man  may  bask  in  the  sunshine  without  know- 
ing in  the  least,  scientifically,  what  sunshine  is, 
so  he  may  enjoy  spiritual  communion  with  God 
and  yet  be  mistaken  in  all  his  reasoning  about 
it.  Between  the  opinions  in  regard  to  the  atone- 
ment entertained  by  Dr.  Channing  and  those  of 
the  latest  Salvation  Army  convert  from  the  slums 
there  would  be,  no  doubt,  a  very  wide  difference ; 
and  yet  the  practical  experience  of  the  atonement 
may  be  as  genuine  in  the  one  case  as  it  was  in  the 
other.  St.  Paul's  explanation  of  the  reconciling 
office  of  Christ,  if  we  knew  with  certainty  exactly 
what  he  meant,  might  prove  to  contain  a  mixture 
of  truth  and  error;  but  that  would  not  alter  the 
facts  of  his  personal  experience.  It  is  very  cer- 
tain that  through  Christ  the  scales  were  in  some 
way  removed  from  his  eyes,  and  he  became  a  new 
creature,  a  lover  and  not  a  persecutor  of  his  fel- 
low men  —  faithful,  like  his  master,  even  unto 
death.  It  is  no  less  certain  that  the  same  change 
has  taken  place,  the  same  atonement  has  been  ef- 
fected and  is  effected  to-day,  through  the  power 
of  the  same  great  life,  in  thousands  upon  thou- 


THE  TRUE  ATONEMENT         125 

sands  of  souls  who  have  become  in  consequence 
a  blessing  instead  of  a  curse  to  the  world. 

"  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,"  said  Jesus,  "  will  draw 
all  men  unto  me."  It  was  a  splendid  prophecy; 
and  in  the  degree  in  which  it  has  already  been 
fulfilled,  the  number  that  have  been  drawn  to 
him,  the  extent  to  which  his  influence  is  felt  to- 
day, we  have  an  earnest  of  still  greater  results  — 
a  ground  for  the  hope  of  a  more  and  more  com- 
plete fulfilment  in  future  ages. 


IX 
THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD 

CLAYTON  E.  BOWEN 


THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD 

"  The  Father,  from  whom  every  family  in  heaven 
and  on  earth  is  named.'* — Eph.  iii,  15. 

u  Jesus  promised  the  Kingdom  of  God ;  what 
came  was  the  church,"  so  has  a  modern  scholar 
expressed  a  simple  historical  fact  with  which  tra- 
ditional Christianity  has  never  perfectly  squared 
itself.  Apologists  there  have  indeed  been  in 
plenty  who  have  argued  the  identity  of  the 
church,  or  that  section  of  the  church  to  which 
they  belonged,  with  the  promised  kingdom,  but 
a  more  exact  and  unbiased  exegesis  has  shown 
such  identification  to  be  an  act  of  dogmatic  vio- 
lence. The  fact  remains  that  what  Jesus  an- 
nounced in  no  uncertain  words  as  near  at  hand, 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  did  not  come,  has  not  come, 
upon  the  world.  As  a  consequence  of  his  work, 
we  have,  instead,  a  vast  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tion, the  Christian  church,  or  —  shall  we  rather 
say  ?  —  the  complex  of  Christian  churches. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  Jesus  was  not  aim- 
ing to  found  the  Christian  church,  a  new  reli- 
gious cult  which  should  largely  displace  Judaism 
and  the  other  religions  of  the  time,  although  that 
is  what  came  to  pass  as  the  result  of  his  brief 
ministry.  His  expectation  of  the  immediate  fu- 
ture was  of  something  far  different  from  the 
actual  event.  Can  it  then  be  urged  that  Chris- 
129 


130  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

tianity,  as  it  came  to  be,  was  wholly  foreign  to 
Jesus'  plan  and  purpose,  to  his  spirit  and  his 
ideal?  Would  it  all  seem  strange  and  disap- 
pointing to  him  could  he  know  the  course  of 
things  in  the  last  nineteen  centuries?  Certain 
disappointments  there  would  inevitably  be,  of 
that  we  may  all  be  convinced.  Yet  I  believe  that 
what  has  come  to  pass  is  not  essentially  foreign 
to  the  ideal  and  the  dream  that  lay  at  the  heart 
of  all  Jesus'  work  for  men. 

It  is  true,  to  begin  with,  that  Jesus  did  preach 
the  speedy  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  using 
that  term  essentially  in  the  contemporary  Jewish 
sense.  We  may  not  yield  to  the  temptation  of 
our  own  preferences,  and  modernize  all  his  escha- 
tological  utterances  into  timeless  oracles  concern- 
ing the  sovereignty  of  God  in  the  human  soul. 
No,  when  he  took  up  the  proclamation  of  John 
the  Baptist,  "  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at 
hand,"  he  meant  it  as  John  meant  it,  as  his 
hearers  would  understand  it,  of  an  imminent  cat- 
astrophic miraculous  dawning  upon  the  world  of 
a  perfect  political,  social  and  moral  order,  in 
which  Israel  should  come  into  its  own  as  the 
chosen  people  of  God.  And  this  conviction  gave 
Jesus  his  life's  task  and  dominated  all  his 
preaching.  "  Make  ready  by  change  of  heart 
and  life,  for  the  coming  kingdom,  that  ye  be 
worthy  to  enter  into  it."  The  "  Kingdom  of 
God  "  is  his  inclusive  term,  as  it  had  been  his 
people's  for  centuries,  for  the  new  order  for  whose 


THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD  1S1 

advent  he  is  preparing  men,  which  he  himself, 
as  Messiah,  expects  one  day  to  establish.  And 
yet  —  it  is  a  singular  fact  not  generally  noted  and 
commented  on  that  he  practically  never  calls  God 
King.  The  proclaimer  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
in  all  his  preaching  of  religion  to  his  fellow-men, 
does  not  use  for  the  divine  Majesty  the  title  of 
King,  but  always  the  title  of  Father.  In  other 
words,  the  conception  of  the  relations  of  men 
and  God  in  the  perfect  order  to-be  which  actually 
dominates  his  heart  and  utterance  is  not  the 
Kingdom  of  God  at  all,  but  the  Family  of  God. 
This  is  a  fact  sufficiently  striking,  and  one  which 
must  be  clearly  realized  if  we  are  at  all  to  un- 
derstand the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  his  real  sig- 
nificance. 

What  is  the  explanation,  then,  of  this  curious 
double  conception  of  God  and  His  ultimate  re- 
lations with  men,  in  the  words  of  Jesus? 
Briefly,  it  is  this.  The  term  "  Kingdom  of  God," 
and  the  expectation  which  centered  about  it, 
Jesus  inherited  from  his  own  people,  as  he  in- 
herited their  language  and  their  customs.  He 
believed  devoutly  and  unquestioningly  in  the  com- 
ing kingdom  and  found  his  life's  mission  in  its 
proclamation.  And  yet  it  is  not  the  ideal  to 
which  his  own  innermost  life  most  keenly  re- 
sponds. When  he  is  speaking  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  he  is  speaking  as  a  Jew ;  when  he  speaks 
of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  he  is  speaking  as  a 
man.     In  one  case  he  speaks  as  the  devout  ad- 


132  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

herent  of  a  religion;  in  the  other,  as  the  spokes- 
man of  religion.  When  he  actually  comes  close 
to  the  men  and  women  about  him,  yearning  to 
bring  each  of  them  into  the  blessedness  of  the 
perfect  relation  with  God  which  he  knows,  he 
forgets  about  the  King  and  his  subjects,  and 
thinks  only  of  father  and  child,  of  the  tenderness 
and  intimacy  of  the  perfect  family.  He  is  him- 
self, surely,  unconscious  that  he  is  uniting  two 
points  of  view;  he  has  no  logical  interpretation 
of  the  expression  which  his  religious  experience 
finds.  Always  he  is  the  Jewish  rabbi  and  prophet 
declaring  with  sincerity  and  passion  his  people's 
hope  and  dream,  but  always  also  the  rabbi  and 
prophet  is  suffused  and  interpenetrated  by  the 
purely  religious  man,  the  human  soul  in  intimate 
fellowship  with  the  divine  Father. 

And  this  real  heart  of  Jesus'  utterance  it  was 
which  persisted,  which  had  the  power  to  persist 
and  to  shape  the  future.  The  scheme  of  the 
coming  Kingdom,  the  Messianic  conception  of 
Jesus  himself,  all  the  specifically  Jewish  elements, 
that  bound  his  message  to  a  religion,  an  older 
cult,  these  little  by  little  were  put  into  the  back- 
ground, and  fell  away.  The  old  terms  have  in- 
deed never  been  given  up,  but  they  were  early 
charged  with  a  specifically  new  content.  The 
family  idea,  that  which  was  expressive,  not  of  a 
religion,  but  of  religion  itself,  in  its  essence, 
really  shaped  the  course  of  the  church's  early  de- 
velopment.    We  see  the  process  going  on  in  our 


THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD  133 

New  Testament  —  in  the  letters  of  Paul,  in  the 
book  of  Acts,  in  the  reflections  of  church  thought 
and  feeling  which  our  gospels  give.  The  fol- 
lowers of  Jesus,  as  bound  in  the  fellowship  of 
their  common  faith  and  hope,  bear  each  the 
sacred  name  of  brother,  and  even  the  glory  of  the 
coming  kingdom,  though  in  no  wise  dimmed,  is 
really  conceived  as  the  glad  free  life  of  children 
with  a  father,  as  the  perfect  family.  "  He  that 
overcometh  shall  inherit  these  things,  and  I  will 
be  his  God,  and  he  shall  be  my  son  "  (Rev.  XXI, 
7).  Jesus'  name  for  God  was  unanimously 
adopted  by  his  followers,  and  the  content  of  his 
spiritual  service  for  them  was  thus  simply  but 
inclusively  stated :  "  as  many  as  received  him,  to 
them  gave  he  power  to  become  children  of  God." 
So  powerful  was  the  real  religious  impulse  of 
Jesus'  inner  life  over  against  all  his  inherited 
forms  of  thought  and  expectation.  And  thus  did 
he  promise  the  kingdom  of  God,  while  that  which 
came  was  the  family  of  God. 

But  we  all  know  that  no  religious  impulse, 
however  pure  and  strong,  can  exist  in  itself  alone, 
as  a  disembodied  spirit.  We  know  that  Chris- 
tianity did  not  remain,  indeed  never  actually  ex- 
isted, as  a  simple  expression  of  religion.  It 
needs  became,  almost  at  once,  a  religion,  a  cult, 
as  was  Judaism,  or  any  one  of  the  Greek  or 
Roman  or  Oriental  cults  of  the  time.  And  so  it 
has  remained  to  our  day;  only  so  could  it  have 
been  preserved  to   our  day.     Now  all  about  us 


134  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

is  being  raised,  in  this  inquiring  age,  the  ques- 
tion as  to  the  finality  of  this  religion  in  which  the 
spiritual  impulse  of  Jesus  took  embodiment  and 
name.  Is  Christianity  final,  is  it  absolute?  The 
claim  of  finality  is  made  for  many  conflicting  re- 
ligions ;  should  we  make  it  for  ours  ?  What  does 
the  question  mean?  Are  we  asking  if  the  Chris- 
tianity of  Paul  or  of  Irenaeus  or  of  the  Nicene 
council  of  325,  or  of  Augustine,  or  of  the  dark 
ages,  of  the  Scholastics  or  Luther  or  Calvin,  of 
Edwards  or  Wesley  or  Channing  or  Ritschl  is 
final?  To  ask  these  questions  is  to  answer  them. 
The  Christianity  of  every  one  of  these  men  or 
periods  has  been  changed,  has  passed  away.  No- 
where can  we  find  a  Christianity,  as  a  coordinated 
system  of  religious  thought  and  practice,  that  is 
final.  We  surely  cannot  expect  our  own  Chris- 
tianity to  be  final.  Our  faith  in  the  onward  up- 
ward progress  of  man  allows  no  exception  in  the 
sphere  of  the  religious  life.  There  has  certainly 
appeared,  as  yet,  no  Christianity  that  is  final. 

Does  this  mean,  then,  that  we  all,  through  the 
centuries,  have  misapprehended  the  real  teaching 
of  Jesus,  that  his  gospel,  if  we  might  discover  it 
in  its  purity,  would  be  final  and  absolute?  This 
question  as  to  the  finality  of  Jesus'  own  religion 
may  receive  a  truthful  answer  both  in  the  affirm- 
ative and  in  the  negative.  We  are  constantly 
the  victims  of  the  ambiguity  of  our  own  lan- 
guage, and  confuse  religion  as  such,  with  a  re- 
ligion, an  organized  religious  cult.     If  we  speak 


THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD         135 

of  Jesus  as  having  a  religion,  that  religion  was 
Judaism.  He  was  a  faithful  member  of  that 
cult,  and  had  no  intention  of  being  anything 
else.  The  finality  of  Jesus'  religion,  if  we  mean 
by  religion  the  organized  fellowship  of  faith  and 
worship,  would  not  mean  the  finality  of  Chris- 
tianity at  all,  but  of  Judaism.  For  Jesus  was  in 
no  sense  a  Christian,  but  a  Jew.  And  Judaism, 
even  at  its  highest  reach,  even  as  it  came  to  ex- 
pression in  Jesus,  is  not  final,  as  Christianity,  in 
its  noblest  representative,  is  not  final. 

But  Jesus'  religion,  conceived  as  his  relation 
with  God,  is  final,  not  because  it  is  his,  but  be- 
cause it  is  religion.  Religion  is  always  final  —  a 
religion  never  is.  What  Jesus  was  actually 
teaching  and  impressing  on  men  was  the  sense  of 
their  personal  relation  to  the  great  Life  and 
Law  and  Power  and  Love  behind  the  world,  that 
relation  conceived  as  the  tenderest  and  most  in- 
timate filial  piety  and  affection.  That  is  the 
very  heart  of  religion,  in  its  last  analysis;  that 
is  timeless,  and  has  no  relations  to  any  particular 
place  or  cult.  The  hour  cometh  and  now  is  when 
neither  in  this  mountain  nor  in  Jerusalem  shall 
men  worship  the  Father;  His  true  worshippers 
shall  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth  in  the 
child-like  love  and  trust  and  obedience  of  their 
lives.  This  is  Jesus'  religion,  and  it  is  final. 
No  new  revelation  can  ever  come  to  the  sons  of 
men  which  shall  contradict  this  religious  experi- 
ence, which  shall  show  God  not  to  be  the  Father 


136  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

of  our  souls,  which  shall  relegate  the  brother- 
hood of  man  to  the  limbo  of  outworn  supersti- 
tions, and  substitute  a  relation  of  man  to  man 
at  once  more  true  and  of  more  worth  to  the 
moral  life.  To  the  future  development  of  re- 
ligious experience  we  can  indeed  set  no  bounds, 
but  that  development  must  surely  only  more 
clearly  and  movingly  set  forth  the  thought  of 
God  and  men  as  bound  in  an  association  of  which 
the  tender  home-words  *—  father,  child,  brother, 
sister  —  are  the  truest  expressions.  The  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  is  final  —  for  religion  is  final,  by 
whatever  prophet  it  be  spoken,  in  whatever  cult 
it  come  to  expression. 

I  have  urged  that  religion  is  in  its  essence  best 
described  as  a  family  relationship;  I  would  fur- 
ther urge  that  all  religions  are  likewise  essentially 
families.  The  analogy  seems  to  me  a  perfect 
one.  The  day  is  past  when  we  can  pass  judg- 
ment, good  or  ill,  on  a  man's  personal  religion  by 
naming  or  characterizing  the  religion  to  which 
he  professes  allegiance.  Religion  is  at  home  in 
all  religions ;  all  religions  have  their  portion  of 
finality,  their  share  of  spiritual  power,  their  gifts 
of  consolation  and  peace.  "  Which  has  not 
taught  weak  wills  how  much  they  can?  Which 
has  not  fallen  on  the  dry  heart  like  rain?  "  On 
none  may  we  look  scornfully  or  with  animosity. 
Each  is  a  great  family,  whose  ancestry  and  whose 
traditions,  in  most  cases,  go  back  into  a  remote 
past,   whose   history   is   glorified   by   saints   and 


THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD  137 

prophets  and  men  of  might.  A  man  is  a  Chris- 
tian, we  say,  or  a  Mohammedan,  or  a  Behaist,  or  a 
Parsee,  or  a  Jew ;  we  have  not  yet  said  anything 
of  his  religion,  we  have  only  mentioned  his  family 
name.  It  is  as  if  we  said  he  is  a  Brown  or  an 
Adams  —  we  have  not  said  anything  as  to  his 
family  virtues,  his  love  and  care  for  his  wife  or 
child  or  parents.  These  qualities  we  expect  in  ev- 
ery family,  and  it  is  not  their  presence  which  dis- 
tinguishes one  normal  family  from  another,  but 
simply  the  lines  of  historical  ancestry,  the  fac- 
tors of  birth  and  kinship.  Whatever  be  the  re- 
ligious  family  name,  whatever  the  ancestry  reach- 
ing down  from  the  past  which  has  produced  us 
as  set  in  our  present  religious  family,  let  us  ex- 
pect of  ourselves  and  of  those  in  every  family 
the  family  characteristic,  that  is,  religion  in  its 
simplest,  truest  form.  No  man  need  depreciate 
his  own  family  in  order  to  appreciate  his  neigh- 
bour's. No  man  need  be  the  less  loyal  and  grate- 
ful to  his  own  forbears  because  names  of 
greater  note  appear  in  his  neighbor's  genealogy. 
Can  we  not  forget  the  differences  of  name,  of 
ancestry  and  history,  and  live  in  fellowship  with 
the  other  families  in  this  community  of  the  world? 
But  can  we  not  also  do  this  without  forgetting 
our  own  kin,  our  own  fathers  and  mothers  and 
the  long  line  of  honorable  descent  of  which  we 
are  the  culminating  representatives  to-day?  It  is 
always  a  sad  thing  when  a  man  is  really  forced  to 
break  with  the  religious  family  out  of  which  has 


138  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

come  his  life,  to  which  he  owes  his  earliest  nur- 
ture. It  must  sometimes  be  done,  even  as  it  is 
sometimes  necessary  to  break  with  the  family  to 
which  we  are  bound  by  ties  of  blood.  But  it  is 
a  tragedy  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other;  it  is 
an  abnormality.  Surely  one  should  as  little  wish 
to  break  with  his  historic  past  and  seek  another 
religion  because  he  is  personally  drawn  to  its 
representatives,  or  because  some  of  his  own  spir- 
itual kin  are  little  to  his  taste,  as  to  make  a 
similar  transfer  of  his  outer  family  connection. 
When  religion  is  understood  in  its  proper  sense, 
then  both  in  this  mountain  and  in  Jerusalem 
shall  men  worship  the  Father,  in  spirit  and  in 
truth.  No  man  shall  need  to  leave  his  religion 
to  find  religion.  Then  shall  we  no  longer  talk 
of  the  Christian  religion,  the  Jewish  religion,  but 
rather  of  religion  as  Christianity,  religion  as 
Judaism,  as  Buddhism,  and  the  rest.  We  shall 
no  longer  find  wise  or  needful  the  demand  which 
the  centuries  of  missions  have  been  making  — 
that  a  man  should  of  a  sudden  leave  his  father 
and  his  mother,  his  ancestry,  his  name,  his  home, 
his  traditions,  and  become  transplanted  into  the 
currents  of  another  family  life  where  he  has  no 
past  and  no  real  points  of  attachment. 

And  as  we  deprecate  such  forcible  adoption 
from  one  household  to  another,  so  shall  we  de- 
precate the  impulse  toward  expatriation  which 
sometimes  urges  a  man  to  sever  himself  from  his 
own    family,    from    any    family  —  the    impulse 


THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD  139 

which  says,  "  I  will  have  no  ancestry  save  hu- 
manity, no  kin  save  all  men,  no  home  save  the 
world.  With  Jesus  I  shall  say:  Whosoever  shall 
do  the  will  of  God,  the  same  is  my  brother  and 
sister  and  mother."  He  who  thus  speaks  forgets 
that  this  utterance  of  Jesus  came  out  of  a  bit- 
ter tragedy  in  his  experience,  a  tragedy  forced 
upon  him  from  without,  not  chosen  by  himself, 
a  violation  of  all  that  is  holiest  in  the  common 
life  of  men.  And  he  forgets,  too,  that  though 
religion  is  at  home  in  all  religions,  it  is  rarely 
at  home  in  no  religion,  that  it  cannot  easily 
breathe  and  live  as  itself  alone,  but  ever  seeks 
embodiment.  The  men  whose  lives  have  really 
moved  the  world  religiously  have  been  men  who 
had  a  religion,  within  which  all  their  dreams  and 
ideals  might  find  shelter  and  nurture,  and  come  to 
expression.  The  perfect  example  is  again  Jesus 
the  loyal  Jew;  or  we  may  remember  Francis  the 
Catholic.  And  if  inward  monitions  or  outward 
strife  forced  upon  these  leaders  of  men  the 
tragedy  of  a  complete  renunciation  of  the  family 
of  their  birth  and  training,  then  they  set  valiantly 
to  work  to  found  and  father  a  new  family,  as 
whose  ancestor  they  became  honored  by  later  gen- 
erations. So  Luther,  so  in  their  time  the  Bud- 
dha and  Mohammed.  Such  a  violent  severing 
of  the  family  relationship  will  be  rendered  un- 
necessary and  even  impossible  by  the  truer  con- 
ception of  religion  which  is  making  its  gradual 
way    in    the    world.     When    religion    shall    no 


140  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

longer  be  synonymous  with  creed  or  opinion,  but 
with  love  and  service,  then  no  man's  ancestral 
faith  need  cause  him  trouble  or  searchings  of 
heart.  Even  as  our  forefathers  in  the  flesh 
shared  many  opinions  and  joined  in  many  prac- 
tices which  we  have  long  since  outgrown  or  re- 
pudiated, without  disowning  our  ancestry  or  be- 
ing ashamed  of  our  name,  so  should  we  be  out- 
wardly free  and  inwardly  desirous  to  keep  the 
shelter  of  our  spiritual  homes,  though  we  leave  be- 
hind doctrines  and  rites  deemed  precious  by  our 
fathers  in  the  faith. 

In  the  new  day  of  religion  the  church  shall 
never  again  repudiate  the  family  spirit  by  sub- 
stituting as  its  bond  of  union  an  agreement  in 
opinion,  nor  violate  that  spirit  by  driving  from 
the  gracious  influences  of  the  household  its  own 
children,  born  and  reared  at  its  fireside.  In  that 
day  we  shall  be  to  one  another  brothers,  not 
fellow-believers.  When  all  our  partial  believing 
is  swallowed  up  in  perfect  sight,  then  love  shall 
still  abide  unchanged.  In  the  day  that  is  coming 
there  may  be  fewer  religions  and  churches,  cer- 
tainly the  growth  of  religion  will  not  consist  in 
the  multiplication  of  new  sects  and  denomina- 
tions —  but  surely  religion  itself  shall  in  that 
day  grow  and  develop  mightily  within  all  ex- 
istent families  of  God,  and  shall  fulfil  its  di- 
vinely appointed  task  of  moulding  humanity  into 
the  kingdom  of  God  —  that  is,  one  great  family, 
whose  fellowship  touches  every  life  on  our  planet 


THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD  141 

with  the  binding  blessing  of  brotherhood,  and 
with  the  tenderest,  deepest,  fullest  love  and  trust 
towards  the  common  Father. 

If  this  is  our  ideal  for  the  future  of  the  race, 
let  us  strive  also  to  make  it  the  ideal  for  the 
present  of  the  family  of  God  into  which  we  have 
been  born.  I  would  plead  for  a  deeper  feeling 
for  the  history  that  lies  behind  our  present  re- 
ligious relationships,  for  a  more  intelligent,  more 
grateful,  more  loyal  appreciation  of  our  spirit- 
ual ancestry,  for  that  great  current  of  religious 
thought  and  life  out  of  which  we  have  been  be- 
gotten. We  here,  as  members  of  religious  so- 
cieties in  America,  belong  to  the  Christian  family 
—  any  preference  of  ours  can  as  little  change 
that  as  any  other  fact  of  history,  as  it  could 
change  the  family  name  we  bear,  or  our  physio- 
logical ancestry.  All  that  has  been  fixed  for  us 
by  the  past.  Once  for  all,  history  has  developed 
so  and  so  and  not  otherwise,  such  and  such  a 
specific  process  of  development  has  resulted  in 
the  various  existences  of  to-day.  In  our  case,  it 
has  been  the  development  of  the  Christian  church. 
Buddhism  and  Mohammedanism  have  had  their 
field  of  service  elsewhere  than  in  America,  or  in 
England,  Holland,  Germany,  whence  came  our 
fathers.  Judaism  has  been  of  direct  influence 
only  through  the  permanent  impress  it  made 
upon  Christianity. 

We  are  Christians  —  not  using  that  term  as 
connoting  any  fixed  doctrines   or  opinions,  not 


142  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

as  identifying  ourselves  with  the  Christianity 
of  any  time  or  individual  or  sect,  not  as  imply- 
ing any  peculiar  set  of  virtues  or  excellences,  but 
simply  as  giving  our  family  name,  and  declaring 
the  plain  fact  of  our  ancestry.  As  to  doctrines, 
those  you  and  I  hold  may  often  be  duplicated 
much  more  nearly  in  members  of  families  of  other 
than  the  Christian  name  than  in  many  who  are 
of  our  own  lineage.  As  to  virtues  and  excellen- 
ces, it  is  hard  to  see  how  a  good  Christian  be- 
havior could  differ  from  good  Jewish  behavior, 
or  any  good  behavior.  You  and  I  might  well 
feel  restive  under  the  Christian  name  if  it  limited 
us  to  the  beliefs  and  forms  of  any  individual 
Christian  who  ever  lived,  or  even  to  those  of 
Jesus  himself,  or  if  it  claimed  to  exclude  from 
our  spiritual  fellowship  and  sympathy  those  of 
another  name  and  heritage.  But  as  expressive 
of  the  body  of  traditions,  of  the  history  and  the 
development  of  our  own  family,  our  own  house- 
hold, the  name  is  sacred;  it  must  call  out  our 
deepest  loyalty  and  devotion.  We  are  always 
being  reminded  that  the  safeguarding  of  the 
civic  family  is  the  greatest  contribution  to  the 
welfare  of  society:  even  so  surely,  I  believe,  is 
the  cultivation  of  the  church  family  the  bulwark 
of  the  welfare  of  religion.  The  disintegration 
of  the  home,  the  severing  of  the  bonds  that  tie 
men  to  a  past  of  hallowed  associations,  is  as  dire 
in  its  effects  in  one  sphere  as  in  the  other. 

I   can   say   what   I   mean   most   effectively   in 


THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD  143 

words  which  Charles  Wagner  has  written  of  the 
home, 

"  To  give  up  the  ancestral  hearth,  to  let  the 
family  traditions  fall  into  desuetude,  to  abandon 
the  simple  family  customs,  for  whatever  return, 
is  to  make  a  fool's  bargain,  and  such  is  the  place 
in  society  of  family  life,  that  if  this  be  impover- 
ished, the  trouble  is  felt  throughout  the  whole  so- 
cial organism  .  .  .  Whence  does  the  individ- 
ual draw  his  originality,  this  unique  something 
which,  j  oined  to  the  distinctive  qualities  of  others, 
constitutes  the  wealth  and  strength  of  a  commu- 
nity? He  can  draw  it  only  from  his  own  family. 
Destroy  the  assemblage  of  memories  and  practices 
whence  emanates  for  each  home  an  atmosphere  in 
miniature,  and  you  dry  up  the  sources  of  char- 
acter, sap  the  strength  of  public  spirit.  It  con- 
cerns the  country  that  each  home  be  a  world, 
profound,  respected,  communicating  to  its  mem- 
bers an  ineffaceable  moral  imprint.  .  .  . 
Nothing  else  can  take  [the  place  of  family  feel- 
ing] for  in  it  lie  in  germ  all  those  fine  and 
simple  virtues  which  assure  the  strength  of  so- 
cial institutions.  And  the  very  base  of  family 
feeling  is  respect  for  the  past  —  for  the  best 
possessions  of  a  family  are  its  common  memories. 
An  intangible,  indivisible  and  inalienable  capi- 
tal, these  memories  constitute  a  sacred  fund  that 
each  member  of  a  family  ought  to  consider  more 
precious  than  anything  else  he  possesses."  All 
that  is  very  fine  and  very  true  in  respect  to  the 


144  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

households  of  which  we  severally  form  a  part, 
but  I  feel  that  it  is  equally  true  of  our  spiritual 
families,  of  our  churches,  of  our  religions.  The 
assemblage  of  memories  and  practices  which  con- 
nects us  in  an  unbroken  line  with  Jesus  and  Paul 
and  Augustine  and  St.  Francis  and  Luther  and 
Wesley  and  Channing  and  Phillips  Brooks  — 
this  is  indeed  something  very  sacred  and  precious, 
to  break  with  which  would  be  indeed  to  do  vio- 
lence to  our  soul's  highest  life  and  to  our  prom- 
ise of  spiritual  efficiency  in  the  world's  service. 

To  take  but  one  example,  we  read  and  must 
continue  to  read,  in  our  services  of  worship,  the 
sacred  Scriptures  of  our  fathers  —  sacred  not 
because  of  superhuman  origin  and  character,  but 
because  of  human  associations  and  sentiments. 
The  function  of  the  Scripture  reading  in  our 
services  is  not  primarily  edification  or  instruc- 
tion; judged  by  an  absolute  standard  a  hundred 
modern  preachers  may  give  us  homilies  superior 
to  those  of  Peter,  James  and  Jude.  We  have 
history  more  edifying,  poetry  more  inspiring, 
than  much  in  the  pages  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Our  sermons  ought  to  make  full  use  of  it,  and 
of  the  writings  treasured  as  sacred  by  other  fam- 
ilies. But  our  Scripture  we  read  as  a  man  draws 
from  a  secret  drawer  a  letter  faded  and  yellow 
with  time,  and  reads  it  with  tears  and  strange 
softenings  of  heart,  because  it  is  from  the  lost 
wife  of  his  youth,  or  from  his  father,  or  from  a 
treasured  and  honored  ancestor.     How  meaning- 


THE  FAMILY  OF  GOD  145 

less  to  tell  him  that  as  a  letter  it  is  surpassed  by  a 
thousand  others,  that  his  neighbor's  wife  or  child 
or  grandsire  has  composed  an  epistle  of  far 
greater  merit,  which  we  offer  him  for  his  perusal. 
He  knows  not  what  we  mean.  What  sacredness 
have  the  strangers'  words  for  him,  however  wise 
and  beautiful,  however  precious  in  the  family 
circle  where  they  have  their  true  place?  In  his 
hour  of  meditation  and  memory  they  are  an  in- 
trusion, though  at  the  proper  season  he  shall  re- 
joice in  them  as  the  product  of  a  quick  heart  and 
a  ready  pen.  In  no  religion  of  the  world  are 
the  Scriptures,  whatever  claim  be  made,  really 
read  and  adjudged  at  their  actual  face  value,  but 
rather  always  as  family  documents,  with  a  power 
which  is  not  in  the  written  word.  In  this  day, 
when  old  things  are  passing  away  and  all  things 
are  becoming  new,  it  behooves  the  Christian 
church,  as  it  behooves  every  religious  fellowship, 
to  cherish  this  bond  of  union  with  the  past  that 
is  the  source  of  so  much  of  to-day's  power. 
Such  bonds  are  none  too  frequent;  without 
superstition,  but  with  rational  appreciation,  let 
us  keep  them  unsevered.  So  shall  our  spiritual 
home  be  to  us,  not  a  temporary  tenement,  within 
whose  walls  we  have  no  past  and  no  future,  but 
an  ancestral  family  abode,  "  a  world  profound, 
respected,  communicating  to  its  members  an  in- 
effaceable moral  imprint." 

All  about  us  are  churches  whose  organized  life 
and  practice  is  shaped  by  one  and  another  basic 


146  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

principle;  let  us  see  to  it  that  in  the  religious 
families  of  which  we  shall  form  a  part  the  anal- 
ogy is  followed  of  those  churches  the  prime  words 
of  whose  declaration  of  faith  are  Fatherhood 
and  Brotherhood, 


X 

A  SOCIAL  GOSPEL 

NICHOLAS  PAINE  GILMAN 


A  SOCIAL  GOSPEL 

The  subject  of  my  discourse  this  evening  is 
A  Social  Gospel.  My  text  is  the  familiar  words 
of  the  Prophet  Micah  (I  follow  the  Revised 
Version) : 

M  To  do  justly,  to  love  kindness  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God." —  Micah  vi,  8. 

You  will  observe  that  I  do  not  say  The  Social 
Gospel,  for  I  do  not  presume  to  have  discovered 
the  only  gospel  for  Society.  I  would  speak  more 
modestly  rather,  of  some  of  the  characteristics 
of  a  social  gospel,  which  should  give  it  a  clear 
title  to  that  name. 

The  prophets  and  the  psalmists  of  Israel  so 
closely  identified  themselves  with  their  people  that 
one  naturally  looks  for  a  motto  for  a  treatment 
of  a  social  gospel  to  the  Old  Testament.  The 
New  Testament  gives  us  many  a  noble  word  that 
might  serve  to  head  a  discourse  on  "  A  personal 
Gospel,"  but  the  intense  social  consciousness  of 
the  Jewish  people  expresses  more  closely  the  need 
which  we  feel  to-day  of  an  evangel  for  modern 
society.  Our  present  notion  is  that  no  man  can 
save  himself  from  the  bottomless  pit  of  im- 
morality by  thinking  chiefly  on  his  own  salva- 
tion: such  thinking  is  itself  condemnation,  self- 
pronounced.  There  is  a  paradox  of  blessedness, 
as  well  as  a  paradox  of  happiness.  To  neither 
can  we  attain  by  making  it  our  object  of  pur- 
149 


150  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

suit.  No  man  can  be  saved  alone.  Moreover, 
when  any  true  gospel  for  to-day  rings  in  our 
ears,  we  shall  hear  much  of  society,  of  that  very 
society  which  the  mystic,  intent  on  his  own  se- 
curity, practically  leaves  out  of  reckoning,  in 
his  rhapsody  of  words;  we  shall  hear  the  stern 
daughter  of  the  voice  of  God  commanding,  first 
of  all,  "  Do  justly."  Social  justice,  first  and 
foremost!  And  then  human  kindness:  our-kind- 
ness.  Love  kindness!  Only  in  the  third  place 
says  the  voice,  not  to  be  put  by,  "  Walk  with  thy 
God,  not  in  self-sufficiency,  not  in  mystical  ex- 
altation: not  in  metaphysical  dogmatism,  not  in 
pharisaic  pride  of  attainment  of  ritual  exactness, 
but  humbly,  not  defining,  not  refining,  but  ador- 
ing, with  thy  hand  upon  thy  mouth.  Canst  thou 
by  searching  find  out  God?  The  heavens  of 
heavens  are  His,  but  the  earth  hath  He  given  to 
the  children  of  men."  They  need  to  live  here  not 
a  life  of  saintly  separateness,  but  a  life  of  human 
endeavor  together,  by  a  social,  not  an  individual 
law. 

We  have  many  so-called  gospels  offered  us 
to-day  —  a  gospel  for  an  age  of  doubt ;  a  gospel 
for  an  age  of  sin;  a  gospel  of  atonement;  a 
gospel  of  character;  a  gospel  of  divine  imma- 
nence ;  a  gospel  of  divine  transcendence ;  a  gospel 
of  pantheism;  a  gospel  of  culture;  a  gospel  of 
service;  a  gospel  of  rest;  a  gospel  of  work. 
What  interests  us  in  this  hour  is  none  of  these, 
but  a  gospel  that  may  be  rightly  called  a  gospel 


A  SOCIAL  GOSPEL  151 

for  society,  a  gospel  of  society,  a  gospel  from 
society :  a  social  gospel.  It  is  the  demand  of  the 
day,  the  demand  of  the  age. 

A  natural  mistake  is  made  by  many  warm- 
hearted Christian  preachers  when  they  identify 
this  much-desired  social  gospel  with  the  eco- 
nomic scheme  known  as  Socialism.  Notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  Socialism  has  now  been 
before  the  world  long  enough  for  its  deep  defects 
as  a  scheme  of  thought,  and  its  impracticability 
as  a  polity  for  civilized  man  to  be  fully  realized 
by  the  judicious,  new  recruits  from  time  to  time 
appear,  especially  among  the  teachers  of  "  liberal 
orthodoxy,"  as  the  phrase  once  ran.  With  all 
respect  for  the  deep  earnestness  and  warm  en- 
thusiasm for  humanity  which  animates  such  men 
as  the  preacher  of  the  City  Temple  in  London, 
older  men  who  have  been  reasoning  freely  and 
learning  much  about  these  matters  for  a  genera- 
tion can  accept  neither  the  exegesis  nor  the  eco- 
nomics of  this  Christian  Socialist.  It  is  too  late 
in  the  history  of  New  Testament  Criticism  to 
offer  to  intelligent  men  of  to-day  an  ideal  Jesus 
whose  conception  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  is 
found  to  be  strictly  in  accord  with  the  doctrines 
of  Karl  Marx  and  with  the  history  of  the  Jewish 
people  as  it  actually  befell  after  the  crucifixion. 
Mr.  Campbell,  in  his  book  on  Christianity  and 
the  Social  Order,  tells  us  that  the  all-important 
thing  in  primitive  Christian  preaching  was  its  in- 
tense belief  in  the  coming  of  an  ideal  social  order 


152  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

in  which  men  should  no  longer  feel  any  desire 
to  strive  against,  or  to  injure,  one  another.  Yet 
certainly  the  Gospel  of  John,  whatever  its  pre- 
cise date  of  composition  may  have  been,  is  here 
a  better  witness  than  the  twentieth-century 
preacher,  and  this  represents  Jesus  as  declaring 
on  a  most  momentous  occasion,  "  My  Kingdom  is 
not  of  this  world."  Dr.  Sanday,  the  noted  Ox- 
ford scholar,  has  much  more  weight  as  an  impar- 
tial expositor  of  the  Gospel  teaching  than  Mr. 
Campbell,  and  he  says  in  his  latest  volume :  "  The 
centre  of  gravity  of  our  Lord's  mission,  even  as 
it  might  have  been  seen  and  followed  by  a  con- 
temporary, lay  beyond  the  grave." 

The  easy  method  of  reading  the  conceptions 
of  one  age  into  the  utterances  of  another,  cen- 
turies earlier,  is  not  new,  but  it  does  not  long 
convince  the  historic  sense.  We  may  find  an  ex- 
cuse indeed  for  the  London  preacher  saying  that 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  as  Jesus  understood  it, 
could  never  have  been  anything  less  than  "  a 
universal  brotherhood,  a  social  order  in  which 
every  individual  unit  would  find  his  highest  hap- 
piness in  being  and  doing  the  utmost  for  the 
whole."  But  the  excuse  can  only  be  that  this 
is  a  noble  idea  in  itself  of  the  Kingdom,  and 
that  his  theological  scheme  compels  him  to  at- 
tribute this  to  the  theological  Christ;  despite  the 
plainness  of  the  record,  he  rules  out  what  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  is  reported  to  have  said,  and  puts 
into  his  mouth  ideas  which  are  in  full  contra- 


A  SOCIAL  GOSPEL  153 

diction  to  his  reputed  utterances.1  Dr.  Reville 
has  declared  more  wisely  that  economic  laws  had 
no  existence  for  Jesus;  they  lay  outside  the 
sphere  of  his  interests.  There  is  then  no  ex- 
cuse for  the  attribution  to  Jesus  of  the  scheme  of 
Marxian  Socialism,  as  Mr.  Campbell  expounds  it 
with  so  much  confidence.  This  scheme  has  been 
thoroughly  riddled  by  the  most  liberal  and  pro- 
gressive economists,  and  students  of  contempo- 
rary thought  may  well  be  astonished  to  find  it 
taken  up  again  by  Christian  Socialists  at  the 
very  time  when  its  essential  ideas  are  being 
steadily  abandoned  by  the  most  thoughtful  so- 
cialists themselves.  Socialism  may  have  a  fu- 
ture, but  it  will  not  be  Marxian  Socialism. 

The  fundamental  difficulty  with  the  Christian 
Socialists  is  that  they  fully  realize  the  need  of  a 
social  gospel  for  modern  man,  but  they  have  not 
been  trained  in  their  schools  of  divinity  to  re- 
spect the  historical  meaning  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus,  and  they  have  not  been  taught  to  compare 
wisely  with  the  social  teachings  of  other  religions 
the  teachings  of  Christianity.  They  therefore 
father  upon  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  most  philan- 
thropic doctrines  to  which  the  modern  world  has 
come,  and  even  baseless  and  doctrinaire  schemes 
of  economic  life  and  social  progress  which  the 
mind  of  modern  man  does  not  accept.     They  are 

i"The  Christian  life,  far  from  being  a  scheme  of  per- 
manent social  regeneration,  was  originally  conceived  as 
preparatory  to  an  imminent  millennium." 

(L.  T.  Hobhouse.) 


154  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

trying  to  occupy  two  distinct,  widely  different, 
and  irreconcilable  positions.  Christianity,  as 
commonly  held,  is  a  profoundly  individualistic 
religion;  it  is  not  a  philosophical  or  scientific 
code  of  morals;  it  is  not  a  program  for  civiliza- 
tion to  follow,  step  by  step.  It  is  a  religion,  not 
a  morality. 

The  latest  historian  of  the  evolution  of  morals 
has  wisely  said,  "  Historically,  Christianity  has, 
in  fact,  no  theory  of  society  by  which  to  guide 
itself.  Its  doctrine  is  personal.  The  common 
life  that  it  contemplates  is  a  life  of  brotherly 
love,  a  community  of  saints  where  all  things  are 
in  common  and  lawsuits  are  not,  nor  any  other 
mode  of  maintaining  order  by  the  strong  arm. 
Hence,  amid  all  the  wonderful  descriptions  of 
charity,  of  love,  of  self -surrender,  we  hear  very 
little  of  justice.  Indeed,  how  could  it  be  other- 
wise? What  need  of  justice,  when  love  readily 
yields  all?  Why  talk  of  a  fair  division  to  one 
who,  if  his  cloak  is  taken,  will  make  that  a 
ground  for  giving  up  his  garment?  What  need 
for  equal  rights  among  men  who  claim  nothing 
for  themselves  and  yield  all  they  have  to  all  who 
want?  The  code  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
appears  to  contemplate  what  in  modern  phrase 
we  should  call  a  voluntaryist  or  anarchist  com- 
munity. Nonresistance  is  its  central  feature. 
There  is  to  be  no  fighting,  no  revenge,  no  law- 
suits, no  oaths,  no  self-defence,  no  insistence  on 
private  property,  nor  excessive  provision  for  the 


A  SOCIAL  GOSPEL  155 

future.  If  there  is  to  be  any  marrying  or  giv- 
ing in  marriage  at  all,  there  is  to  be  no  divorc- 
ing of  wives  [for  it  is  probable  that  Jesus  made 
no  exception  at  all  to  his  strict  rule].  There  is 
to  be  unbounded  charity  without  display.  Alto- 
gether, a  life  that  might  be  lived  for  a  while  by 
a  picked  brotherhood  of  perfect  men  and 
women."  (L.  T.  Hobhouse ;  "  Morals  in  Evo- 
lution."    Pt.  II,  p.  152.) 

The  social  controversies  of  our  century  evi- 
dently cannot,  evidently  will  not,  issue  in  any 
such  naive  construction  of  our  complex  human 
life  as  this.  Jesus'  Kingdom  of  God  was  a  reli- 
gious ideal,  not  a  secular  polity,  not  an  ideal  that 
duly  regards  all  sides  of  the  moral  life  of  civil- 
ized man.  Our  actual  ethics,  the  ethical  code 
which  rules  the  life  of  the  best  and  wisest  of 
modern  men,  is  an  ethics  to  which  Greece  and 
Rome  and  Judaism  have  contributed  very  much; 
indeed,  they  have  given  us  the  staple  of  our 
morality.  With  them  we  believe  in  the  goodness 
of  the  world  and  the  worth  of  human  nature,  the 
value  of  the  intellect  and  the  virtues  of  the  mind, 
the  desirability  of  self-assertion  of  the  reason, 
the  beauty  of  large-mindedness ;  we  admire  cour- 
age and  self-respect;  we  believe  in  bodily  excel- 
lence, in  the  temperate  uses  of  wealth,  in  re- 
finement, in  culture,  in  the  development  of  human 
faculty.  All  these  things  we  practice  sedu- 
lously, six  days  in  the  week.  On  the  seventh  we 
listen,  with  more  or  less  respect  and  with  more  or 


156  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

less  self-condemnation,  to  the  ascetic  and  un- 
worldly counsels  of  the  New  Testament,  read  by 
preachers  whose  practice  on  week-days  is  even 
such  as  our  own. 

The  explanation  of  the  inconsistency  is  not 
far  to  seek.  The  New  Testament  emphasizes 
some  very  deep  and  very  important  phases  of  our 
human  life,  its  experiences,  especially,  of  sin  and 
sorrow.  It  offers  thus  the  needed  counterpoise 
to  the  ethics  of  the  secular  world,  the  morals  of 
the  natural  man.  But,  to  use  a  philosophic 
formula,  it  is  this  world  —  this  world  of  human 
institutions,  of  business,  of  knowledge,  art,  polit- 
ical life,  refinement,  culture,  power,  self-asser- 
tion, civilization  —  it  is  this  world  of  strength 
and  natural  greatness  that  forms  the  thesis  of 
our  life.  The  New  Testament  tells  us  of  self- 
denial,  of  sacrifice,  of  death  and  a  life  to  come: 
this  is  the  antithesis  of  our  work-day  life,  of  our 
week-day  world.  It  would  be  a  very  false  con- 
ception, a  very  unbalanced  life,  a  very  poor 
world,  if  this  were  all;  if  it  could  possibly  take 
the  place  of  the  substance  of  our  ordinary  life, 
and  become  the  thesis,  instead  of  the  antithesis. 
Human  life  reconciles  the  two  views  in  a  syn- 
thesis that  gives  its  due  share,  its  rightful  place, 
to  each  in  a  higher  unity.  But  to-night  I  am 
chiefly  concerned  with  so  much  of  the  contradic- 
tion as  is  involved  in  the  fact  that  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  is  chiefly  personal,  fundamentally  ascetic 
some  would  say,   certainly   very  unworldly,   and 


A  SOCIAL  GOSPEL  157 

fundamentally  a  religious,  not  an  ethical  ideal. 

Not  attempting  the  impossible  task  of  doing 
complete  justice  to  this  view  of  life  in  a  few 
minutes,  I  dwell,  with  much  risk  of  misconstruc- 
tion, on  the  other  side,  the  social,  rather  than  the 
personal  gospel. 

We  need  a  Social  Gospel  to-day.  Such  a 
"  glad  news  "  cannot  rest  upon  a  more  or  less 
doubtful  exegesis  of  the  words  of  Jesus,  a  more 
or  less  strained  interpretation  of  even  his  most 
personal  precepts.  It  will  incorporate  all  the 
teachings  of  the  New  Testament,  so  far  as  they 
have  been  approved  by  the  deepest  experience 
of  the  race;  but  it  will  rest  primarily  upon  hu- 
man nature,  in  its  great  constancies  from  age  to 
age.  This  good  news  must  be  for  social  man; 
it  must  therefore  give  society  the  first  place,  not 
the  second.  We  recognize,  of  course,  the  fact 
that  society  is  made  up  of  persons:  at  the  same 
time,  it  is  true  that  society  makes  persons.  The 
fundamental  justification  of  a  social  gospel  is 
the  profoundly  social  nature  of  man.  He  is  a 
social  being, 

"  Made  of  social  earth, 
Friend  and  brother  from  his  birth." 

Our  social  gospel  will  be  a  gospel  for  this 
generation,  not  for  any  one  of  the  past  genera- 
tions, or  for  any  one  of  the  generations  to  come ; 
it  must  meet  the  call  we  make,  and  answer  to 
the  need  that  we  feel.     Not  that  our  needs  are 


158  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

fundamentally  different  from  those  that  our 
fathers  felt,  not  that  human  nature  is  very 
changeable  in  its  essence.  Our  civilization,  espe- 
cially, does  not  render  self-control  unnecessary, 
or  self-denial  superfluous  throughout  life.  The 
great  realities  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  are 
constant,  for  human  nature  was  long  since  essen- 
tially set  in  the  mould  of  experience.  But  every 
age  has  its  own  angle  of  vision  for  these  realities 
and  it  speaks  of  them  in  its  own  dialect.  To-day 
our  dialect  is  social,  not  individual. 

A  social  gospel  puts  in  the  forefront,  alike  of 
blessing  and  of  responsibility,  the  great  institu- 
tions of  human  nature.     Fundamental  to  all  these 

—  not  in  a  line  with  other  institutions,  but  their 
underlying  cause  —  is  the  family,  a  bond  not  to 
be  lightly  assumed,  not  to  be  lightly  cast  aside, 
but  always  sacred,  because  so  deep-lying.  Filial 
piety;  indeed,  the  ancients  spoke  well,  so  saying: 
"  the  religion  of  the  hearth  " —  where  should 
religion  be  found,  if  not  at  this  vital  centre?  A 
social  gospel  will  not,  indeed,  say  that  under  no 
circumstances  may  men  and  women  separate 
from  each  other,  when  once  unwisely,  hastily, 
rashly  engaged,  and  unfitly  married,  not  mated 

—  only  to  find  that  the  Divine  Power,  speaking 
through  human  nature,  has  had  very  little  to  do 
with  their  union.  It  was  not  consulted,  while 
thoughtlessness  and  immaturity  have  had  very 
much  to  do  with  it.  But  marriage  is  a  deep 
social  bond,  and  a  social  gospel  will  put  it  first 


A  SOCIAL  GOSPEL  159 

among  its  natural  sacraments;  its  vows  shall  be 
vows  of  reason,  and  their  maintenance  the  task 
of  faith  and  honor  at  their  highest  pitch. 

In  very  ancient  days  group  morality  was  an 
important  part  of  all  duty.  The  father  repre- 
sented the  family;  he  was  its  priest  and  ruler; 
the  family  was  an  undying  corporation,  and  he 
held  its  joint  property  as  trustee.  He  gave  his 
children  in  marriage,  not  symbolically,  but  liter- 
ally, and  he  was  responsible  to  every  other  family 
for  the  right  behavior  of  all  the  members  of  his 
group.  Over  this  the  son,  in  his  time,  succeed- 
ing his  father,  bore  rule.  The  child  was  the 
father's.  Modern  liberty  says  not  always  his, 
not  after  maturity ;  but  it  does  not  incline  to  say 
with  the  consistent  socialist,  "  never  his,  but  al- 
ways society's  child."  Each  child  has  a  natural 
right  because  an  indefeasible  claim  to  a  mother's 
love,  to  a  father's  care ;  children  cannot  be  reared 
by  wholesale,  suckled  at  the  breast  of  society,  with 
a  bureaucratic  regime  for  a  father.  The  chil- 
dren's need  is  the  parents'  blessing;  the  social 
gospel  speaks  most  plainly  to  men  through  this 
primal  method  of  preserving  the  race  of  man. 
Professor  Shaler  said  well :  "  There  are  doubt- 
less many  ways  in  which  men  may  make  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth  of  their  dwelling-place, 
but  the  simplest  of  all  ways  is  through  a  fond, 
discerning,  and  individual  care  of  each  child." 
A  social  gospel  does  not  grudgingly  say  with 
the   Christian   Apostle,   "  It  is   better  to   marry 


160  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

than  to  burn."  But  it  blesses  the  home  as  the 
beautiful  centre  of  pure  human  affection;  it  re- 
bukes the  ascetic  who  denies  the  right  of  half 
the  human  race  to  its  natural  offices  of  wife  and 
mother.  He  would  leave  the  other  half  un- 
blessed by  the  deepest  passion  that  can  fill  its 
days;  not  united  in  mankind's  most  sacred  bond, 
not  units  but  individual  halves.  Man  and 
woman  crave  the  unity  in  diversity  of  sex;  the 
ascetic  would  leave  them  the  solitariness  of  the 
man  or  the  woman  alone. 

A  social  gospel  says  first  to  all  the  children  of 
men  in  society,  "  Do  justly."  It  does  not  de- 
clare foremost,  or  without  mentioning  justice, 
"  Love  one  another."  Kindness  may  be  needed 
to  teach  many  of  us  what  justice  truly  is,  but 
there  is  no  substitute  for  justice  under  the  wide 
heavens.  "  Justice  satisfies  every  one,  and  jus- 
tice only,"  as  Emerson  said.  No  age  before  our 
own  has  made  so  persistent  a  demand  as  ours  for 
the  doing  of  justice  by  every  class  to  every  other 
class.  The  cry  of  the  workingman  of  this  cen- 
tury is  not  for  charity,  even  if  charity  be  inter- 
preted to  mean  love;  it  is  for  right,  for  the  fair 
choice  of  opportunities,  for  the  rightful  portion 
of  good  things  of  the  earth,  for  the  dealing  out 
of  justice  by  law-givers  and  wealth-makers.  Not 
the  amiable  relief  of  the  particular  poor  man 
with  a  passing  alms,  but  the  extirpation  of  the 
causes  of  poverty,  mental  and  physical;  not 
mild   exhortation   to   the    employer   to    love    his 


A  SOCIAL  GOSPEL  161 

workman,  but  the  embodiment  in  his  relation  with 
them  of  more  of  mutual  regard  and  helpfulness 
and  strengthening  than  a  cash  nexus  alone  can 
give,  to  remedy  the  causes  of  social  antagonism  at 
their  very  root  in  some  manner  of  injustice;  to 
promote  unity  of  feeling  by  creating  a  real  unity 
of  interests  —  this  is  doing  justice,  and  loving 
kindness. 

And  what  better  way  is  there  of  walking  hum- 
bly with  God  than  so  to  walk  righteously  and 
kindly  with  man?  We  have  indeed  to  respect  the 
immense  range  of  human  impulses,  powers,  fac- 
ulties, tastes  and  acquirements.  We  must  re- 
frain from  proclaiming  in  the  name  of  a  social 
gospel  any  class  narrowness,  any  partisan  judg- 
ment, any  religious  partialism,  any  dictate  of 
ignorance,  passion  or  inhumanity.  For  every- 
thing that  is  human  a  social  gospel  has  tolerance, 
for  nothing  that  is  inhuman ;  it  will  seek  out  the 
social  causes  of  crime,  even,  in  a  spirit  of  kind- 
ness. "  Society  wishes  to  be  just  to  you,"  it  says 
to  the  outcast.  "  It  loves  kindness,  for  it  loves 
its  kind.  Justice  is  the  law  of  the  social  gospel ; 
kindness  is  its  inspiration.  We  seek  to  save  not 
our  souls,  but  your  souls;  let  our  souls,  if  need 
be,  perish  in  the  endeavor ! "  Let  all  individual 
care  for  our  own  separate  souls  —  Stoic,  Epi- 
curean, Christian,  Buddhist  —  begone.  Save  us 
together,  Almighty  Justice,  Eternal  Kindness! 
or  save  us  not  at  all,  we  say. 

A  social  gospel  calls  on  men  to   assert  their 


162  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

rights,  as  well  as  to  do  their  duties;  to  live  self- 
respectingly,  ambitiously,  nobly;  to  develop  the 
germs  of  all  that  is  good  and  fair  within  them; 
to  lay  hold  of  social  tasks  and  to  live  a  life  of 
public  spirit.  It  laments  the  "  accursed  want- 
lessness  "  of  the  very  poor ;  it  rej  oices  in  the 
thirst  for  art  and  knowledge  which  the  meanest 
may  show,  which  is  to  be  gratified  for  the  good 
of  all.  It  denounces  sins  against  society  com- 
mitted by  persons  or  by  corporations,  as  worse 
even  than  sins  against  persons  only.  Never  for- 
getting the  worth  of  personal  character,  or  the 
need  for  individual  helpfulness,  it  is  intent  on  so- 
cial salvation  from  social  diseases. 

A  Social  Gospel  has  thus  its  great  hopes  and 
an  inspiring  ideal,  based  upon  the  widest  view  of 
the  progress  of  human  society.  Science  and 
philosophy  unite  in  declaring  the  tremendous  fact 
of  ethical  evolution  to  be  the  most  important  truth 
of  our  social  life  here  on  earth.  This  evolution 
has  now  become,  very  largely,  self-conscious. 
We  are  aware  of  our  many  needs  as  a  society; 
we  know  some,  at  least,  of  the  paths  which  we 
must  follow  to  satisfy  these  needs:  thought  and 
reason  will  steadily  increase  the  knowledge  of 
such  paths.  As  Mr.  Hobhouse  says,  "  The 
slowly  wrought-out  dominance  of  mind  in  things 
is  the  central  fact  in  all  evolution."  Here  is 
"  the  germ  of  a  religion  and  an  ethics  which  are 
as  far  removed  from  materialism  as  from  the 
optimistic  theology  of  the  metaphysician,  or  the 


A  SOCIAL  GOSPEL  163 

half -naive  creeds  of  the  churches.  ...  It 
is  a  message  of  hope  to  the  world,  of  suffering 
lessened  and  strife  assuaged,  not  by  fleeing  from 
reason  to  the  bosom  of  faith,  but  by  the  increas- 
ing rational  control  of  things  by  that  collective 
wisdom  which  is  all  that  we  directly  know  of  the 
Divine."     The  Father  and  We  are  One  I 

The  Social  Gospel  has  its  peculiar  saints ;  they 
introduce  lasting  social  reforms,  found  great  phil- 
anthropic institutions,  and  set  inspiring  exam- 
ples of  social  usefulness,  from  the  days  of  John 
Howard  and  Elizabeth  Fry  down  to  those  of  Sam- 
uel Chapman  Armstrong,  and  Josephine  Shaw 
Lowell.  "  How  many  years  "  this  last  "  woman 
of  sorrows, 

With  all  her  widowed  love,  immeasurably 
Ministered  unto  the  abused  and  stricken 
And  all  the  oppressed  and  suffering  of  mankind. 
Herself  forgetting,  but  never  those  in  need: 
Her  whole  sweet  soul  lost  in  her  loving  work. 
Pondering  the  endless  problems  of  the  poor. 
Endeavoring  the  help  that  shall  not  hurt: 
Seeking  to  build  in  every  human  heart 
A  temple  of  justice." 

This  modern  social  saint  wrote  a  high  and 
stern  parable  of  the  Valley  of  Industry,  and  lived 
in  the  spirit  of  Mr.  Gilder's  lines. 


XI 

JESUS  THE  FULFILMENT 

HENRY  PRESERVED  SMITH 


JESUS  THE  FULFILMENT 

Time  is  an  essential  element  in  the  processes  of 
nature.  No  one  but  a  child  expects  his  flowers 
to  bloom  the  day  after  they  are  planted.  In  the 
processes  of  history,  however,  we  are  impatient 
when  things  are  slow  in  ripening.  Jesus  himself 
compares  the  kingdom  to  seed  sown  in  the  ground 
which  must  have  time  to  produce  the  blade,  and 
then  the  ear,  before  we  can  see  the  full  corn  in 
the  ear.  The  pessimistic  preacher  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  a  pessimist  because  he  saw  no 
progress :  "  The  sun  ariseth  and  the  sun  goeth 
down,  and  hasteth  again  to  the  place  whence  he 
arose.  The  wind  goeth  towards  the  south  and 
turneth  about  towards  the  north,  and  the  wind 
returneth  again  to  its  circuits.  All  the  rivers  run 
to  the  sea,  yet  the  sea  is  not  full;  to  the  place 
whither  the  rivers  go  thither  they  go  again.  All 
things  are  full  of  weariness ;  man  cannot  utter  it ; 
the  eye  is  not  satisfied  with  seeing  nor  the  ear 
with  hearing.  That  which  hath  been  is  that 
which  shall  be  and  that  which  hath  been  done  is 
that  which  shall  be  done,  and  there  is  no  new  thing 
under  the  sun."  The  matter  with  the  man  is  that 
he  cannot  discover  progress.  The  world  seems  to 
him  to  present  everlasting  sameness;  it  is  one 
continual  grind,  because  the  perpetual  motion 
seems  to  lead  nowhither. 

We  have  an  advantage  over  the  ancient  philoso- 
167 


168  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

pher  in  that  we  can  take  a  longer  view.  The  in- 
cessant repetition  of  the  same  round  is  indeed 
wearisome.  But  if  with  each  round  we  make  a 
little  gain  we  have  the  confidence  that  we  are 
moving  somewhither.  History  has  been  rewritten 
in  our  day,  just  as  natural  science  has  been  re- 
written, because  we  have  discovered  the  law  of 
progress  and  growth.  We  are  no  longer  con- 
cerned with  battles  and  sieges,  with  great  captains 
and  their  guns  and  drums.  We  see  that  what  we 
want  to  know  is  the  social  movement,  the  progress 
of  mankind.  Great  events,  as  they  are  called, 
are  now  seen  to  be  significant  only  as  they  reveal 
social  forces,  as  they  make  visible  the  forward 
movement  of  masses  of  men.  Great  men  are  no 
longer  isolated  phenomena,  worthy  of  study  as 
ultimate  facts ;  they  are  symptoms  of  their  times, 
products  of  their  environment,  or  rather  of  their 
environment  and  of  heredity. 

Some  consciousness  of  this  fact  was  present  to 
the  mind  of  Jesus  when  he  claimed  that  he  came 
not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil,  and  in  the  mind  of 
his  disciples  when  they  declared  that  he  came  in 
the  fulness  of  times.  Jesus  (humanly  speaking) 
could  not  have  come  at  any  other  age  than  the 
age  at  which  he  did  come,  nor  in  any  other  coun- 
try than  Judea.  His  own  consciousness  of  this 
fact  passed  over  into  his  church,  and  the  thought 
most  prominent  in  the  minds  of  his  followers  was 
that  he  was  the  predicted  Messiah.  The  fullest 
expression  of  this  belief  that  has  come  down  to  us 


JESUS  THE  FULFILMENT        169 

is  in  the  words  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  arisen 
Jesus  himself :  "  These  are  the  words  which  I 
spake  while  I  was  yet  with  you;  that  all  things 
must  be  fulfilled  which  were  written  in  the  Law  of 
Moses  and  in  the  prophets  and  in  the  Psalms  con- 
cerning me."  Critical  questions  need  not  detain 
us.  We  take  the  words  here  as  expressive  of  the 
faith  of  the  early  church.  The  belief  is  that  all 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament  (for  the  three  parts 
of  the  Hebrew  Bible  are  indicated  by  the  words 
Law,  Prophets  and  Psalms)  were  predictive  of 
Jesus. 

Now,  frankly  we  must  concede  that  the  way  in 
which  the  early  church  attempted  to  verify  its 
belief  by  pointing  out  direct  and  specific  prophe- 
cies of  Christ,  does  not  command  the  assent  of 
thinking  men  to-day.  There  was  no  doubt  in  the 
Old  Testament  a  predictive  element,  an  adumbra- 
tion of  a  great  deliverer  to  come.  But  the  texts 
which  the  New  Testament  writers  interpreted  in 
this  sense  often  bear  a  quite  different  meaning. 
The  argument  from  prophecy,  as  it  has  so  often 
been  presented  by  Christian  scholars,  is  now 
rarely  adduced,  and  when  adduced  it  fails  to  com- 
mand our  confidence.  Our  historic  apprehension 
has  advanced  beyond  that  of  the  Fathers.  We 
are  compelled  therefore  to  ask  ourselves  whether 
there  is  no  element  of  truth  in  the  claim  made  for 
Jesus  —  that  he  was  the  fulfilment  of  the  earlier 
dispensation. 

Our  inquiry  here  is  really  an  inquiry  for  val- 


170  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

ues.  The  early  disciples  must  have  found  in 
Jesus  something  which  gave  them  the  same  sort  of 
satisfaction,  only  in  a  larger  degree,  which  they 
had  found  in  the  Bible  of  their  fathers.  Let  us 
notice  this  in  detail.  In  the  first  part  of  the  Old 
Testament  which  we  call  the  Law,  we  have  the 
foundation  on  which  the  pious  Jew  based  his  reli- 
gious life.  This,  as  we  all  know,  is  an  elaborate 
code  of  regulations  for  the  individual  as  well  as 
for  the  nation.  As  a  code  of  laws  these  regula- 
tions must  be  obeyed,  and  to  be  obeyed  they  must 
present  some  motive,  for  men  do  not  subj  ect  them- 
selves to  a  code  of  rules  without  the  hope  of  gain- 
ing something  or  the  fear  of  losing  something. 
What,  now,  did  the  Israelites  hope  to  gain  by 
this  minute  and  punctilious  obedience  to  the  laws  ? 
The  answer  is  clear :  They  hoped  to  gain  access 
to  God,  and  what  they  feared  in  case  of  diso- 
bedience was  exclusion  from  His  presence.  The 
Law  is  Israel's  way  of  approach  to  God.  He 
who  observes  it  may  come  with  confidence.  To 
this  end  the  sacrifices  and  priesthood  are  ordained 
and  regulated.  The  worshipper  must  come  with 
an  offering.  When  the  sacrifice  had  been  duly 
brought  before  God,  God  deigned  to  look  upon 
His  servant  and  made  him  welcome. 

The  idea,  then,  at  the  basis  of  the  law  is  the 
idea  of  mediation.  This  is  even  more  clear  as  we 
look  at  the  priesthood.  The  common  man  must 
have  some  one  to  present  his  offering,  to  see  that 
it  is  correctly  sacrificed,  and  to  pronounce  the 


JESUS  THE  FULFILMENT      171 

benediction  which  gives  assurance  of  the  divine 
favor.  To  modern  men  this  idea  of  mediation 
—  especially  in  its  sacrificial  form  —  is  unintelli- 
gible or  unsympathetic.  We  should  regard  it  as 
a  step  backward  were  the  altar  of  God  again  to 
smoke  with  the  daily  sacrifice  of  lambs  or  bullocks. 
But  with  the  Jew  of  nineteen  hundred  years  ago 
it  was  different.  The  system  of  sacrifice  and 
priesthood  was  a  part  of  his  religion.  His  high- 
est aspirations  and  his  holiest  desires  found  ex- 
pression in  these  forms.  They  had  a  value  that 
we  can  hardly  estimate.  But  when  the  disciples 
came  into  touch  with  Jesus  they  found  that  he 
performed  the  same  office  for  them  which  had 
been  performed  by  the  sacrifices  and  by  the 
priests.  So  strong  was  his  faith  in  the  ever- 
present  Father  that  he  introduced  others  into  the 
presence,  and  made  them  feel  at  home  there.  He 
was  in  their  experience  a  true  mediator. 

In  this  sense  he  was  the  fulfilment  of  the  legal 
system,  and  it  was  really  this  which  they  had  in 
mind  when  they  spoke  of  him  on  one  hand  as  the 
lamb  of  God  who  bears  the  sins  of  the  world,  and 
on  the  other  as  their  high  priest.  No  doubt  the 
impression  of  his  fulfiling  the  sacrificial  system 
was  deepened  by  his  tragic  death.  The  shedding 
of  blood  had  always  been  in  some  mysterious  way 
essential  to  communion  with  God.  The  self-sac- 
rifice of  a  hero  for  the  cause  of  truth  must  have 
a  higher  ethical  value  than  the  slaughter  of  thou- 
sands of  bulls  or  of  goats.     Some  underlying  con- 


173  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

sciousness  of  this  must  have  been  in  the  minds  of 
the  disciples  —  probably  they  did  not  stop  to 
reason  it  out  very  closely.  The  fundamental 
fact  was  that  Jesus  accomplished  for  them  more 
than  the  whole  Old  Testament  system  had  done; 
he  brought  them  near  to  God.  For  this  reason 
he  was  not  only  the  sacrificial  lamb,  he  was  also 
the  highpriest  in  a  better  temple  than  the  old  dis- 
pensation could  show. 

In  this  sense  we  see  how  Jesus  may  justly  be 
called  the  fulfilment  of  the  Law.  He  is  claimed 
also  as  the  fulfilment  of  the  Prophets  —  the  sec- 
ond division  of  the  Hebrew  Bible.  Here  we  are 
on  familiar  ground,  for  the  argument  from 
prophecy  has  been  a  favorite  one  with  the  theolo- 
gians. This  argument  has  lost  much  of  its  force 
since  we  have  learned  to  estimate  these  books  in  a 
truly  historical  study.  Whereas  it  used  to  be 
thought  that  the  prophets  were  chiefly  concerned 
with  the  coming  Messiah,  that  they  were  super- 
naturally  enlightened  as  to  his  birthplace,  his 
nativity,  his  vicarious  suffering  and  his  death, 
we  now  see  that  these,  at  any  rate,  were  not  the 
mainspring  of  their  preaching.  Instead  of  look- 
ing away  from  the  present  to  a  distant  future,  the 
prophets  were  chiefly  concerned  with  their  own 
times,  and  their  message  was  one  of  immediate 
practical  benefit  to  their  contemporaries.  They 
were  great  ethical  preachers ;  they  demanded  that 
the  men  of  their  own  time  should  cease  to  do  evil 


JESUS  THE  FULFILMENT         173 

and  learn  to  do  well ;  and  all  their  statements  con- 
cerning the  future  were  intended  to  move  men  in 
the  direction  of  righteousness.  Prediction  was, 
therefore,  a  quite  subordinate  part  of  their  mis- 
sion. But  we  must  recognize  that  the  great 
theme  of  their  thought  and  of  their  preaching 
was  the  kingdom  of  God.  They  were  incurable 
idealists.  They  looked  and  longed  for  a  better 
day  —  when  crime  and  oppression  should  be  done 
away,  when  men  should  learn  war  no  more,  when 
the  earth  should  be  filled  with  the  knowledge  of 
the  Lord  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea. 

Now,  being  men  of  their  own  time,  they  con- 
ceived of  this  coming  kingdom  as  an  exalted  and 
purified  kingdom  of  Israel.  It  was  to  be  a  mon- 
archy, with  a  descendant  of  David  at  its  head. 
But  this  descendant  of  David  was  to  be  a  perfect 
ruler,  endued  with  wisdom  as  well  as  power;  one 
who  would  administer  justice,  keep  the  wicked  in 
check,  help  the  poor  and  downtrodden.  This 
figure  of  the  Messiah  grew  in  brightness  as  time 
went  on,  for  the  very  reason  that  the  outward 
circumstances  of  the  people  of  God  became  worse. 
When  Jesus  came  into  the  world  the  Jews  were 
hoping  and  looking  for  the  appearance  of  this 
deliverer.  It  was  almost  inevitable  that  the  dis- 
ciples, in  endeavoring  to  give  a  rational  account 
of  the  Master  who  so  impressed  them,  should 
find  in  him  the  long-expected  Messiah.  Jesus 
seems  not  to  have  respected  the  identification,  but 


174  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

in  applying  the  conception  to  himself  he  trans- 
formed it,  and  made  it  quite  other  than  it  had 
been. 

The  dream  of  faithful  Jews  had  been  that  their 
Messiah  would  come  as  a  great  conqueror,  would 
overthrow  the  Roman  world-power.  The  glories 
of  Solomon  would  reappear.  The  riches  of  the 
Gentiles  would  flow  to  Jerusalem,  the  Jews  them- 
selves would  be  the  chief  of  the  nations,  and  the 
others  would  be  their  slaves  and  tributaries. 
Jesus  saw  that  such  a  kingdom  would  be  only 
another  worldly  kingdom;  it  would  not  be  the 
kingdom  of  God  for  which  he  prayed  and  for 
which  he  taught  his  disciples  to  pray.  The  cen- 
turies have  approved  his  wisdom.  Repeated  at- 
tempts to  make  the  kingdom  of  Christ  a  worldly 
state,  like  those  of  the  nations,  have  ended  in  fail- 
ure. It  is  more  and  more  evident  that  the  king- 
dom of  God  must  be  a  spiritual  kingdom  —  the 
rule  of  Christ  in  the  hearts  of  men.  In  this  sense 
Jesus  fulfilled  the  prophetic  idea ;  he  took  it  and 
transformed  it,  spiritualized  it  thereby,  elevated 
it  and  made  it  eternal.  Instead  of  fulfilling  iso- 
lated predictions  of  individual  prophets,  he  ful- 
filled the  fundamental  thought  of  all  prophecy. 

The  third  division  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  is  a 
miscellaneous  collection  of  books,  of  which  by  far 
the  most  important  is  the  book  of  Psalms.  This 
book  has  become  dear  to  the  Christian  heart,  be- 
cause it  so  accurately  reflects  the  experiences  of 
the  believing  heart.     It  is  a  little  Bible  in  itself, 


JESUS  THE  FULFILMENT         175 

expressing  not  only  the  aspirations,  sorrows  and 
yearnings  of  men  like  ourselves,  but  also  breath- 
ing the  consolations  and  encouragements  of  God 
Himself.  It  is  not  predictive,  and  we  are  a  little 
puzzled  at  the  claim  that  Jesus  is  its  fulfilment. 
Yet  if  we  look  for  a  single  phrase  in  which  to 
sum  up  the  message  of  the  book,  we  may  perhaps 
find  the  fulfilment  not  very  remote.  The  idea  of 
the  Psalter  may  be  expressed  in  the  words  God 
a  personal  friend  and  Saviour.  Its  motto  might 
be  one  of  its  own  verses :  "  My  heart  and  my 
flesh  fail,  but  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart  and 
my  portion  forever." 

These  yearnings  and  this  faith  were  never  so 
completely  realized  as  in  Jesus.  No  one  has  so 
constantly  lived  with  God  as  his  friend  as  did 
Jesus.  For  this  reason  he  is  the  pledge  and 
assurance  of  God's  friendship  for  ourselves.  In 
him  we  hear  the  voice  of  God  inviting  us :  Come 
unto  me  all  ye  that  are  weary  and  heavy-laden. 
In  him  the  disciples  felt  that  the  imperfect  piety 
reflected  in  the  Psalms  reached  perfection.  He 
was  to  them,  therefore,  the  fulfilment  of  this  part 
of  their  Bible,  as  well  as  the  fulfilment  of  the 
other  portions.  As  in  the  other  cases  they  did 
not  stop  to  reason  it  out  —  they  felt  it,  and  it 
became  a  part  of  their  lives. 

Our  study  has  shown  us  in  the  first  place  why 
the  Old  Testament  has  continued  to  be  a  power 
in  the  Christian  church.  This  collection  of 
books  was  not  only  the  Bible  of  Jesus  himself 


176  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

and  of  his  disciples.  It  expresses  ideas  and  as- 
pirations which  are  natural  to  the  human  heart. 
This  is  true  no  doubt  of  other  religious  litera- 
tures. But  in  none  of  the  other  religious  books 
of  the  world  do  we  find  such  a  variety  of  expres- 
sion as  in  the  Bible  of  the  Jews.  Besides  this,  it 
shows  us  the  organic  connection  of  Christianity 
with  Judaism.  The  words  of  Jesus  himself  ap- 
ply here  —  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the 
full  corn  in  the  ear.  The  roots  of  Christianity 
are  laid  bare  in  the  Old  Testament.  And  as  we 
have  learned  to  study  things  in  their  origins,  the 
bearing  of  this  on  our  knowledge  of  Christianity 
is  obvious. 

But  with  this  I  am  not  at  present  concerned. 
What  we  should  point  out  to  ourselves  is  that 
these  ideas,  which  we  find  germinally  in  the  Old 
Testament,  are  found  more  or  less  distinctly  in  all 
the  earlier  religions.  Jesus  filled  up  the  crude 
outlines  of  religion  for  the  Jews,  not  only,  but 
also  for  the  Gentiles.  In  fact,  the  Greeks,  who 
listened  to  the  preaching  of  Paul,  found  him 
speaking  in  terms  which  their  own  religious  think- 
ing already  knew.  This  is  typical  of  what  has 
taken  place  all  over  the  world,  and  it  is  the  pledge 
that  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  destined  to  become 
the  universal  religion. 


XII 
PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT 

HENRY  H.  BARBER 


PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT 

"  Where  is  the  promise  of  his  coming  ?  for  since 
the  fathers  fell  asleep  all  things  continue  as  they 
were  from  the  beginning  of  the  creation." —  II 
Peter  iii,  4. 

The  worth  of  life  is  largely  in  the  promise  of 
a  better  future.  Religion  is  the  vision  and  out- 
look of  a  higher  good  and  a  larger  life.  Hope, 
faith,  aspiration,  live  and  grow  in  the  prospect  of 
gains  and  glories  to  be  achieved  or  bestowed  in 
days  that  are  surely  coming.  A  power  of  deliv- 
erance from  evils,  a  fulfilment  of  cherished  ideals, 
a  completion  of  broken  lives,  an  established  order 
of  peace  and  blessing  —  these  things  make  the 
vision  and  onlooking  that  men  ask  religion  to 
fulfil. 

The  Christian  gospel  met  this  longing  and  de- 
mand with  its  message  of  lofty  cheer  and  in- 
finite hope.  At  the  outset  that  gospel  was  the 
presence  among  men  of  an  announcing  prophet  of 
infinite  good  will  and  a  more  abounding  life  —  a 
teacher,  healer,  comforter,  inspirer;  a  benignant 
fellowman,  who  diffused  gladness  by  his  presence, 
and  made  men  long  for  purity  and  virtue  by  the 
life  he  lived  among  them.  Their  hearts  burned 
within  them  as  he  told  them  of  a  kingdom  of 
heaven  that  was  to  be  among  them;  that  was, 
indeed,  already  in  the  world  in  the  sonship  and 
179 


180  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

service  of  the  present  God  to  which  he  called 
them  —  a  kingdom  he  and  they  were  to  rejoice 
in  and  help  in,  and  so  to  rule  in,  while  he  was 
with  them,  and  even  more  fully  when  he  went 
away. 

They  did  not  understand  it  very  well,  but  they 
felt  the  divineness  of  his  word  and  way  among 
them,  and  some  of  them  joined  to  make  it  known 
as  the  world's  best  help  and  hope.  His  life  with 
them  was  the  earnest  and  heritage  of  the  best  God 
had  to  give  or  to  reveal. 

And  then  he  was  crucified,  and  their  hopes 
with  him.  They  had  trusted  that  it  was  he  who 
should  redeem  Israel,  and  he  was  dead.  But  all 
that  divine  promise  could  not  die.  Soon  reas- 
surance came.  Such  a  leader  and  such  a  cause 
could  not  perish.  Somehow  he  was  still  with 
them;  somehow  he  would  yet  lead  them  as  be- 
fore, only  thenceforward  with  acknowledged 
right,  and  in  full  splendor  of  human  and  heav- 
enly witness.  So  they  took  heart  again,  and 
lived  in  happy  memories  and  solemn  expectation, 
catching  sometimes  the  higher  spirit  of  his  life, 
as  he  had  said  they  would  when  he  was  gone, 
doing  the  greater  works  and  hearing  the  broader 
call.  They  strengthened  one  another  in  the  hope, 
and  confirmed  one  another  in  the  life,  and  bore 
the  witness  rejoicing  round  the  world. 

But  years  and  generations  passed,  and  still 
he  did  not  come.  And  so  hope  grew  faint  and 
far  and  fading.     "  Where  is  the  promise  of  his 


PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT      181 

Coming?  "  It  was  the  mockers,  this  Epistle  says, 
who  asked  the  question.  The  preachers  of  the 
new  Way  had  dwelt  much  upon  the  promise, 
urging  it  as  a  main  motive  to  discipleship,  a  main 
warning  against  evil  living  and  unbelief.  The 
disciples  had  lived  in  rare  gladness  and  assurance 
in  its  conviction.  They  had  been  constant  under 
persecution,  and  even  strangely  triumphant  in 
the  midst  of  martyr  fires.  The  rulers  could  not 
understand  it,  and  the  philosophers  wondered  a 
little  while  they  despised  the  spreading  supersti- 
tion. And  yet  it  spread  and  prospered  and  gath- 
ered strength.  "  The  word  of  the  Lord  grew 
mightily  and  prevailed."  Some  of  the  believers 
had  counted  much  on  the  fulfilment  of  the  prom- 
ise —  perhaps  boasted  of  their  coming  triumph. 

So  the  taunt  was  natural,  as  it  was  bitter. 
"  See,  your  King  comes  not,  as  all  the  world  but 
you  knew  long  ago  that  he  would  not  come! 
Your  faith  is  vain,  and  your  preaching  also  vain. 
Your  absurd  talk  of  melting  elements  and  a  reno- 
vated world  has  gone  on  long  enough.  Your 
fathers,  who  looked  for  these  things,  are  dead 
without  the  sight,  and  you  like  them  shall  die,  and 
all  things  continue  as  they  were  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  creation." 

So  the  mockers  said.  The  worst  of  it  was  that 
many  among  the  disciples  began  to  think  so  too. 
Lapse  of  time,  disappointed  expectation,  the 
pressure  of  unbelief,  more  spiritual  conceptions, 
the  shifting  emphasis  of  faith  to  other  doctrines, 


182  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

the  practical  conditions  of  their  growing  life  — 
all  these  things  helped  to  put  into  the  background 
in  the  church  itself  the  old  hope  and  the  old  ter- 
ror of  the  descending  angels  and  the  blazing 
world.  Many  of  the  fainthearted  no  longer  ex- 
pected it,  and  some  among  the  best  no  longer 
cared  much  about  it,  if,  indeed,  they  longer  be- 
lieved it.  A  more  spiritual  faith,  or  a  more  spec- 
ulative philosophical  doctrine  was  rising  in  the 
midst  of  Christendom. 

But  the  sticklers  for  the  letter  still  longed  and 
tried  to  believe,  as  to  this  day  some  such  still  try 
and  long.  It  is  always  a  hard  time  for  the  lit- 
eralist  when  the  outward  event  fails  him,  or  turns 
out  other  than  he  expects.  He  wants  the  precise 
form  of  his  imaged  fulfilment,  just  as  your  little 
child  wants  the  very  words  of  his  story,  as  you 
have  often  told  it,  and  will  suffer  no  change  or 
correction.  So  the  literalist  must  have  his  heav- 
enly city  come  down  bodily  from  the  skies,  with 
blare  of  trumpets  and  celestial  fireworks,  else  it  is 
no  New  Jerusalem  for  him.  "  Where  is  the 
promise  of  his  Coming?"  he  sadly  echoed;  and 
all  the  while  the  cities  of  the  great  Roman  world 
were  throbbing  with  the  new  life  of  Jesus  and 
his  gospel,  and  the  hearts  of  the  very  slaves  were 
filled  with  a  new  hope  and  gladness;  and  multi- 
tudes of  men  in  Syria  and  Asia  and  Macedonia 
and  Italy  were  finding  a  new  worth  in  life,  a  new 
trust  in  death,  a  new  fellowship  of  privilege,  a 
new    citizenship    of    souls    under    an    everliving 


PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT      183 

Master  of  men.  "  Where  indeed  the  promise?  " 
the  literalist  Orthodoxy  of  that  day,  and  of  ours, 
assented  and  assents ;  and  behold !  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  was  growing  all  about  them,  as  evermore 
increasingly  through  all  the  ages  since.  "  A 
fading  vision  and  a  far  fulfilment  —  far  and  un- 
certain," the  world  said  then ;  and  the  feebler 
Christians  doubted  if  it  were  not  so.  A  fading 
promise  and  a  far  fulfilment,  in  this  steadfast 
and  stubborn  world,  the  world  in  its  wisdom  af- 
firms of  every  highest  vision  and  fairest  hope  of 
good  to  be  gained  and  life  to  be  lifted,  and  deliv- 
erance to  be  wrought  out  of  man.  "  You  can 
never  abolish  slavery,  you  can  never  destroy 
drunkenness  or  change  the  drinking  habits  of 
society,  or  establish  civil  service  reform,  or  atone 
the  industrial  warfares  of  employers  and  em- 
ployed, or  arbitrate  by  peaceful  methods  the  in- 
ternational strifes  that  burden  and  desolate  the 
nations  and  outrage  every  claim  to  Christian 
civilization." 

And  the  literalists  and  dogmatists  and  shallow 
believers  —  the  Demases  and  Faint-hearts  and 
Ready-to-halts,  accept  the  easy  wisdom  of  the 
mocking  world,  when  the  vision  is  delayed,  or  is 
fulfilled  without  portent  or  audible  voice  from 
heaven.  And  it  always  is  delayed,  or  without 
observation  comes  to  full  reality.  The  world  is 
right  with  such  Tightness  always.  They  were 
wrong,  no  doubt,  those  credulous  early  Chris- 
tians; with  their  dream  of  a  visible  kingdom  of 


184  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

the  saints,  a  return  and  reign  of  the  glorified 
Christ  over  the  subdued  and  vanquished  prince- 
doms among  which  he  had  lived  and  suffered. 
Criticism  holds  them  to  have  been  misjudging; 
history  proves  them  mistaken. 

Yes;  the j  were  misjudging,  as  Columbus  was 
misjudging  when  he  set  forth  to  find  the  Indies 
in  the  West,  and  discovered  a  new  continent ;  they 
were  mistaken  as  Saul  was  mistaken  when  he  set 
forth  to  find  his  father's  asses  and  found  a  king- 
dom. The  form  of  the  vision  changed  and 
passed,  as  all  fixed  forms  of  earthly  events  and 
glories  do  or  may.  But  the  heart  of  that  vision 
was  alive,  expanding,  possessing  itself  of  the  heart 
of  the  world.  It  burst  out  even  then  into  great 
faiths  and  fellowships  and  charities,  which  even 
then  —  and  how  much  more  until  this  day! — 
worked  on  to  bless  and  transform  the  life  of  the 
world,  as  no  renewing  flames,  or  cloud-throned 
prince,  or  solid,  four-square  city,  let  down  from 
heaven,  could,  or  can. 

A  fading  vision  and  a  far  fulfilment?  Yes; 
but  fading  always  into  fuller  day,  and  fulfilled 
in  the  spirit  of  a  larger  hope  and  the  power  of 
an  endless  life.  As  always,  to  the  brave  hoper 
and  the  earnest  worker,  coming  as  he  works,  com- 
ing as  he  waits,  with  hidden  surprises  opening 
within  his  life  and  all  around  him,  with  unseen 
growth  of  thought,  with  new  aspirations,  new 
convictions,  new  fellowships,  new  institutions,  re- 


PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT      185 

newing  or  replacing,  and  always  enlarging,  en- 
nobling, crowning  the  old.  From  an  outward 
coming  to  an  inward,  inspiring  presence,  from  a 
cosmic  catastrophe  to  a  resistless  energy  of  uni- 
versal good,  from  a  rule  over  men  in  the  majesty 
of  earthly  splendors  to  a  rule  in  men  of  love  and 
joy  and  peace  in  a  holy  spirit,  from  fire-cleansed 
lands  and  scroll-wrapt  skies  to  the  new  heavens 
and  new  earth  in  which  righteousness  dwells  and 
grows  to  ever-enlarging  fulness. 

So  the  vision  deepens  and  brightens  and  ex- 
tends and  comes  to  growing  realization,  while  the 
world  sneers  its  speedy  dismissal  to  oblivion,  and 
the  fearful  disciples  are  waiting  for  a  sign ! 

So  it  was  with  the  early  Christian  promise,  and 
so  it  has  been  with  every  higher  form  of  Chris- 
tian faith,  and  every  new  and  better  application 
of  its  temper  and  spirit  to  human  life.  The 
cherished  vision  of  coming  good  finds  continual 
increasing  fulfilment.  The  record  we  have 
brought  from  the  early  scenes  of  Christian  strug- 
gle and  conquest  is  at  once  the  great  instance  and 
the  supreme  parable  of  human  hope  and  hope's 
divine  fulfillments.  Fading  vision,  growing  sub- 
stance of  truth  and  power;  failing  fulfilment  of 
outward  promise,  gaining  realization  of  things 
not  fully  seen  —  that  is  the  witness,  that  the  nor- 
mal order  of  all  true  living,  that  the  spring  and 
cheer  of  all  high  faith.  Vision  is  lost  in  reality, 
anticipation  pales  before  advancing  attainment, — 


186  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

"  And  drowns  the  dream 
In  larger  stream, 
As  morning  drinks  the  morning  star." 

This  is  most  clearly  seen,  no  doubt,  in  the 
ranges  of  our  material  and  industrial  life.  In- 
ventions, discoveries,  applied  science  and  skill 
make  all  expectation  feeble  in  the  rapid  progress 
and  marvelous  achievements  of  industrial  art. 
We  see  in  the  dark,  and  look  through  the  walls  of 
our  houses  and  the  very  tissues  of  our  bodies. 
So  we  may  read  a  new  meaning  into  the  Psalmist's 
song :  "  Yea,  the  darkness  hideth  not  from  thee, 
but  the  night  shineth  as  the  day.  The  darkness 
and  the  light  are  both  alike  to  thee."  We  stand 
amidst  the  roaring  wheels  of  a  great  factory  in  a 
nearby  city,  or  ride  along  the  streets ;  and  try  to 
realize  that  Niagara  has  lent  a  portion  of  its 
flashing  fall  to  weave  our  fabrics  and  speed  our 
journeys;  and  we  chant  with  a  new  awe  the  an- 
cient strain :  "  For  thou  hast  made  him  a  little 
lower  than  God,  and  hast  given  him  dominion  over 
the  works  of  thy  hands."  Or  we  catch  the  pulses 
of  the  electric  waves,  far-sent  over  sea  and  land, 
and  read  the  messages  of  gladness  or  distress 
from  invisible  cords  stretched  from  the  foun- 
dations of  the  world ;  and  beyond  all  possible  con- 
ception of  their  author  we  feel  the  truth  and 
beauty  of  the  wonderful  words :  "  Their  line  is 
gone  out  through  all  the  earth  and  their  words  to 
the  end  of  the  world."  Soon,  as  we  ride  the  winds 
securely,  we  shall  find  new  meaning  and  divineness 


PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT      187 

in  the  great  Psalm  of  the  present  and  sustaining 
God.  "  If  I  take  the  wings  of  the  morning  and 
dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea,  even  there 
shall  Thy  hand  lead  me  and  Thy  right  hand  shall 
hold  me!" 

These  are  but  instances,  that  may  be  paralleled 
in  various  lines  of  scientific  and  industrial  pro- 
gress, to  show  that  all  promise  and  prophecy  are 
transcended  in  the  actual  attainment  of  to-day. 
But  it  will  be  said  that  all  this  is  but  a  single  and 
subordinate  realm  of  human  life,  that  its  nobility 
and  security  consist  not  in  these  things  —  much 
less,  the  promise  and  coming  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  And  this  is  very  true.  Happiness  and 
character  as  the  foundation  of  happiness  depend 
very  little  on  the  bushels  of  wheat  exported,  the 
miles  per  hour  we  travel,  the  speed  of  spindles  and 
printing  presses.  The  historian,  Froude,  repeats 
the  wisdom  of  all  prophets  and  sages  when  he 
warns  us  that  the  essential  conditions  of  a  peo- 
ple's security  and  permanence  are  the  few  and 
fixed  elements  of  its  moral  soundness  and  moral 
enterprise. 

And  here  it  is  that  the  doubters  and  cynics  put 
in  their  demurrers.  "  Society  is  as  bad  as  ever ; 
our  free  institutions  are  but  opportunities  for 
greed  and  recklessness,  and  the  paradise  of  shift- 
less tramps.  The  old  oppressions  have  but 
changed  their  forms,  while  losing  nothing  of  their 
burdens;  even  the  freer,  humaner  faith  we  have 
cherished  is  fading  into  indifference,  doubt,  and 


188  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

moral  carelessness,  while  the  multitudes  that  seek 
the  old  altars  are  growing ;  the  churches  of  dogma 
and  authority  and  the  new  fanaticisms  and  super- 
stitions overtop  and  put  in  a  corner  the  higher 
Christianity  that  we  had  hoped  was  coming  to 
brighten  and  redeem  the  world.  Where  is  the 
promise  of  his  coming,  for  since  the  fathers  fell 
asleep   all  things   continue  as  they  were?  " 

Here  again,  we  need  to  own  all  the  truth  the 
doubters  have  for  their  dismal  outlook.  It  is  most 
true  that  widening  opportunity  does  not  always 
mean  enlarging  character.  Universal  schooling 
does  not  always  insure  general  wisdom,  nor 
broadening  culture  make  certain  the  lift  of  noble 
ideals.  Multiplying  machinery  and  its  products 
have  not  banished  poverty ;  democracy  does  not 
compel  the  dominance  of  wise  statesmanship,  nor 
the  largest  religious  liberty  always  inspire  the 
highest  ideals  of  spiritual  life  and  service.  It  is 
quite  possible  for  a  community  to  make  the 
shameful  choice  of  a  stagnant  content,  or  of 
fruitless  strifes  about  party  watchwords,  while 
the  way  is  wide  before  it  to  better  social  methods 
and  a  more  benign  civilization.  Then,  there  is 
the  dry  rot  of  growing  luxury  and  privileged 
idleness.  It  is  the  saddest  sight  we  are  called  to 
witness,  that  of  young  men  and  women  of  splen- 
did opportunities,  who  are  unmoved  by  all 
high  voices  of  the  heroic  past,  and  the  summons 
of  youthful  aspiration  and  human  need,  and  who 
pour  out  the  precious  treasures  of  their  strength 


PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT      189 

in  the  debasing  worship  of  ignoble  pleasures,  un- 
mindful and  purposeless  in  this  land  and  time  of 
largest  opportunity  —  listless  idlers  and  epicures 
at  God's  great  banquet  of  life! 

But  I  recall  to  myself  and  you  that  this  com- 
plaint itself  is  the  product  of  the  world's  advanc- 
ing life.  The  height  of  the  Christian  ideal  makes 
the  abyss  in  which  the  sins  and  failures  of  men 
and  of  peoples  are  seen,  and  by  contrast  judged. 
These  are  so  sad  and  shameful  because  that  ideal 
is  so  lofty  and  so  fair;  because,  too,  it  has  so 
often  been  approached  and  illustrated,  so  far  at- 
tempted and  attained  by  earnest  men  and  women. 
The  promise  of  the  first  Christian  age  is  illu- 
minated and  confirmed  by  two  thousand  years  of 
progressive  fulfilment.  In  the  long  perspective, 
despair,  discouragement,  is  seen  to  be  absurd. 
Even  the  doubters  and  the  mockers  see  that  all 
things  do  not  continue  as  they  were  from  the  be- 
ginning. Amidst  all  failures  and  backward 
swirls  of  old  materialisms,  cruelties,  warfares, 
"  the  steady  gain  of  man  "  is  still  assured. 

Summon  history,  study  customs,  laws,  homes, 
governments,  institutions.  Study,  if  you  will, 
the  social  discontents,  the  industrial  conflicts,  the 
political  scandals,  the  recurrent  medievalisms  of 
our  times  in  states  and  churches.  You  shall  find 
at  the  heart  of  all  these  things,  and  in  the  way 
they  appeal  to  the  sympathies  and  the  criticisms 
of  society,  and  to  the  moral  judgments  of  man- 
kind, elements  that  mark  and  make  a  far  advance 


190  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

in  the  life  and  lot  of  men.  "  The  old  shames  and 
slaveries  are  as  galling  and  as  hopeless  as  ever?  " 
As  galling,  yes ;  but  not  as  hopeless,  save  as  status 
must  always  be  below  the  advancing  ideal.  When 
I  see  the  homes  of  the  thrifty  working-people  of 
this  country,  the  wise  provision  for  universal  and 
higher  education  —  even  the  beginnings  of  ample 
industrial  education;  when  I  remember  the  vast 
shelter  furnished  to  weakness  and  misfortune,  and 
the  increasing  numbers  who  are  studying  and  serv- 
ing in  the  various  warfare  with  human  need ;  nay, 
even  when  I  see  the  growing  power  of  discontented 
labor  to  hold  long  and  sometimes  winning  con- 
tests with  combined  capital,  I  cannot  doubt  the 
immense  bettering  of  the  lot  of  most,  and  the  in- 
creasing shelter  of  all  in  the  protective  clasp  of 
a  civilization  that  is  growing  humane  in  the  grow- 
ing perception  of  the  Christian  estimate  of  man. 
So  much,  at  least,  is  proved  by  the  social  unrest 
and  heated  conflicts  of  the  times.  It  is  the  new 
recognition  of  brotherhood  compelled  by  a  deep- 
ening sense  of  the  social  worth  of  justice  and 
humanity.  Privilege  is  coming  to  understand  its 
responsibilities.  Economics  is  seen  to  have  a 
moral  and  human  basis.  Here  and  there  one  is 
gaining  adequate  perception  of  the  Christian 
meaning  of  the  splendid  stewardship  of  wealth. 
Legislation  for  party  gains  or  corporate  advan- 
tage is  slowly  shifting  to  regard  for  the  common 
good.  In  the  unfolding  life  of  Christendom  the 
heart  is  evolving  eyes  to  see  and  hands  to  help  the 


PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT     191 

struggling  life  of  the  toilers  and  depressed 
classes.  The  longing  and  the  purpose  are  at 
once  the  growing  promise  and  fulfilment. 

So  of  business  and  social  methods,  and  so  of 
the  standards  of  intercourse  among  peoples  and 
states.  However  the  practice  may  shame  the 
fair  ideal,  the  claim  is  ever  more  strongly  urged 
for  justice  and  human  well-being.  Even  the  mo- 
nopolies that  crush,  the  anarchisms  of  law-defy- 
ing privilege,  the  policies  that  blot  out  weaker 
peoples  in  blood,  find  defense  in  claims  of  fulfill- 
ing larger  human  interests.  Even  the  hypocri- 
sies of  the  time  witness  to  the  growth  of  the 
higher  ideals. 

And  what  shall  we  say  of  the  religious  doubters 
and  despairers?  Here  we  come  to  the  central 
questions  of  our  theme.  Here,  where  the  main 
issues  of  life  are,  they  grow  very  serious,  and 
come  home  to  individual  character  and  the  real 
values  in  every  life.  Let  us  admit,  as  wholly 
true,  the  charge  of  frequent  indifference,  ineffec- 
tiveness and  disloyalty  of  those  on  whom  are  laid 
the  primal  obligations  of  higher  faith,  and  the 
witness  for  the  larger  Christian  truth  and  service. 

But  however  we  fail,  the  promise  does  not  fail. 
The  juster,  humaner,  more  rational,  more  spirit- 
ual conceptions  in  religion  are  taking  possession 
of  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  world.  Look 
abroad,  and  see.  One  after  another,  the  citadels 
of  Orthodoxy  are  yielding  to  the  diffused  po- 
tency  of  a  humane   and   genial  faith.     Half   a 


192  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

score  of  its  leading  representatives  in  the  last 
few  years  have  put  forth  books  in  hearty  accord 
with  the  word  of  Channing  emphasizing  the 
worth  of  man  and  the  parental  character  of  the 
Divine  rule.  Eminent  Congregational  preachers 
are  setting  forth  most  of  the  heresies  for  which 
their  fathers  cut  off  the  Unitarians  less  than  a 
century  ago.  Pulpits  in  this  city,  and  in  every 
city,  are  urging  the  convictions  which  when  first 
heard  in  this  church  were  a  John  the  Baptist  cry- 
ing in  the  wilderness  of  a  harsh  and  arid  Ortho- 
doxy. Your  truth  and  my  truth  —  better,  the 
enlarging  and  victorious  truth  of  God  —  is  hav- 
ing free  course,  and  being  glorified  more  and 
more. 

Where  is  the  promise  of  its  coming?  Hear  the 
great  preachers  of  every  name.  Read  the  great 
religious  journals,  the  great  religious  books,  the 
greater  religious  novelists  and  poets.  See  the 
growing  practical  and  humane  activities  in  all  the 
churches,  the  better  spirit  of  missions,  the  larger 
interest  in  science,  education,  philanthropy,  re- 
forms. The  old  shibboleths  are  largely  shelved, 
in  the  zeal  to  affirm  the  new-old  watchwords  of 
our  familiar  faith.  The  promise  is  to  you,  and 
to  your  children,  and  to  all  who  have  been  far 
off,  but  are  hearing  now  the  diviner  call.  Ye  men 
of  Galilee,  why  stand  ye  gazing  into  heaven  in 
waiting  doubt,  while  the  great  Coming  shines 
from  every  quarter  under  heaven,  and  asks  your 
welcome  and  your  work? 


PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT      193 

So  everywhere  the  promise  brightens  from  the 
Infinite  Promise-keeper,  melting  through  every 
glooming  shadow  of  discouragement  and  seeming 
defeat.  Even  they  who  have  failed,  who  have 
mocked,  who  have  denied,  are  caught  up  at  last 
in  the  sweep  of  the  great  fulfilment !  Life  longs 
always  for  larger  good,  since  life  is  itself  divine. 
Religion  lives  in  the  promise  of  a  Prevailing 
Goodness;  Christianity  is  the  announcing  of  an 
Infinite  Fulfilment. 

It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 

That  though  I  perish,  Truth  is  so; 

That,  howsoe'er  I  roam  or  range, 

Although  I  stray,  Thou  dost  not  change ; 

I  steadier  step  when  I  recall 

That  though  I  slip,  Thou  dost  not  fall. 

And  not  only  for  cheer  to  baffled,  disap- 
pointed, sorrowful  men  and  women  is  the  lesson 
read.  The  cheerful  workers,  the  patient  waiters, 
the  joyous  hopers,  the  expectant  venturers  on 
untried  larger  ways,  need,  too,  the  inspiring 
brightness  and  the  confirming  strength  of  this 
divine  assurance  of  fulfilment.  And  it  does  not 
fail.  Bring  hither  the  believers  in  the  promise, 
and  hear  their  witness.  Summon  the  glorious 
company  of  its  apostles,  the  goodly  fellowship 
of  its  prophets,  the  noble  army  of  its  martyrs. 
Paul,  did  the  Damascus  vision  fail  in  illusion,  and 
the  promise  of  the  sufficing  grace  fade  into  un- 
reality?    Does   the   earnest   expectation   of  the 


194  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

creation  wait  in  vain  for  the  manifestation? 
Hear  his  answer :  "  All  things  are  yours ;  whether 
the  world,  or  life  or  death,  or  things  present  or 
things  to  come;  all  are  yours."  Peter,  did  the 
voice  from  the  excellent  glory  call  you* down  from 
the  holy  mount  only  to  disappoint  your  hope 
that  the  "  exceeding  great  and  precious  promises 
should  be  fulfilled  to  measure  of  your  hope  ?  " 
Nay,  "  his  divine  power  hath  given  us  all  things 
that  pertain  unto  life  and  godliness,"  in  making 
ns  to  be  "  partakers  of  the  divine  nature  "  ;  and 
so  this  is  the  day  of  the  Lord,  wherein  according 
to  His  promise  we  look  for  new  heavens  and  a 
new  earth  in  which  His  more  perfect  righteousness 
shall  be  revealed.  The  great  workers  are  the  di- 
vine hopers. 

Call  now  the  humble  sharers  of  the  Promise,  of 
all  lands  and  times.  They  are  not  disappointed 
though  they  are  still  expectant.  The  divine  vi- 
sion has  not  been  fulfilled  to  the  letter  of  their 
hope,  else  it  had  not  been  divine.  But  the  light 
is  on  their  faces,  the  joy  of  noble  striving  beams 
in  their  eyes,  the  peace  of  achieved  victory  is  in 
their  hearts.  "  Great  peace  have  they  that  love 
thy  law,  and  nothing  shall  cause  them  to  stumble." 
For  themselves,  they  have  found  the  Great  Ful- 
filment, and  so  for  the  world  their  hearts  cher- 
ish and  repeat  its   promise. 

No,  baffled  straggler  with  the  doubts  and  the 
illusions  of  evil,  the  temptations  and  hindrances 
that  delay  and  perplex  your  way  in  the  better 


PROMISE  AND  FULFILMENT      195 

life  you  would  live,  the  higher  choices  you  would 
make,  the  larger  work  you  would  accomplish,  the 
promise  does  not  fail!  No,  sad  and  shadowed 
spirits,  lifting  beyond  the  fading  earthly  prospect 
and  the  gathering  darkness,  your  longing  and 
trust  to  the  heavenly  Promise-keeper.  As  your 
day,  so  your  strength  shall  be ;  for  in  your  weak- 
ness the  Everlasting  Arms  are  still  beneath  you! 
No,  patient  reformer,  helper  of  men,  hoper  for  the 
better  days  of  justice  and  peace,  worker  until  the 
day  dawn,  and  the  Day-star  rise  with  healing  in 
his  beams,  the  lessons  of  experience  confirm  and 
actualize  the  heart  of  all  high  prophecies,  the 
eternal  prophecy  of  the  soul  of  man  —  the  ever- 
coming  kingdom  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  in  the 
growing  brotherhood  of  nations  and  of  men. 

"  The  old  order  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new, 
And  God  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways." 

The  bettering  prospect  of  the  actual  still  nears 
and  brightens  in  the  cherished  vision  and  service 
of  the  ideal. 


XIII 

THE  INVISIBLE  HUMANITY 
OF  GOD 

FRANK  C.  DOAN 


THE  INVISIBLE  HUMANITY  OF  GOD 


As  the  theme  of  our  evening's  meditation,  I 
have  chosen  to  consider  with  you  the  romance 
of  God's  invisible  humanity,  the  motion  of  His 
unseen  spirit  on-pressing  in  the  souls  of  men. 
This  experience  of  God  can  be  measured  only 
by  the  instrument  of  meditation:  Silence  must 
underly  and  master  the  words  with  which  we  shall 
seek  to  sound  this  invisible  humanity  I  call  God. 
The  persistent  presence  of  divinity  in  the  race 
of  men!  From  the  first  man  with  his  vision  of 
his  own  invisibly  divine  image  in  burning  bush 
and  flaming  star  to  the  last  man  with  his  grasp 
of  God's  human  spirit  regnant  and  watchful  over 
the  star-strewn  heavens  and  the  men-strewn  earth 
—  how  consciously,  patiently,  triumphantly  has 
God's  spirit  pressed  in  upon  the  opening  souls  of 
men!  God  is.  The  invisible  spirit  of  all  hu- 
manity, God  is !  I  know  not  what  may  be  in 
the  infinite  reaches  of  unvisited  space  and  un- 
transpired  time.  I  only  know  that  by  some  com- 
manding passion  of  his  expanseless  being,  by 
some  tender  impulse  of  his  placeless  soul  a  God 
has  come  to  earth  to  dwell  within  men.  He  has 
come  to  dwell  evermore  in  the  lives  of  men,  mak- 
ing his  own  their  trials  and  errors,  their  successes 
and  joys,  their  goodness  and  loving  kindness. 
There  is  some  strange,  imperative  persuasiveness 
199 


200  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

in  this  faith  that  men  of  all  times  and  climes  have 
kept  in  the  living  presence  of  God's  image  in 
their  souls.  It  is  a  direct  perception  of  faith 
which  only  a  suicidal  scepticism  has  ever  defeated. 
As  men's  sense  of  the  brutal  energy  round  about 
them  has  grown,  their  spirits  have  but  gained 
just  so  much  in  trustful  confidence:  this  ma- 
jestic God  of  the  heavens  by  the  virtue  of  his 
very  power  is  all  the  more  reliably  concerned  for 
their  life,  all  the  more  j  oyf ul  in  the  times  of  their 
gladness,  the  more  sad  in  the  hours  of  their  sor- 
row, the  more  tenderly  forgiving  in  the  places  of 
their  sin,  the  more  patient  in  the  days  of  their 
weakness  and  unfaithfulness. 

n 

What  matters  it  then  that  the  earliest  concern 
of  the  divine  life  was  with  the  blind  organizing 
of  the  great  universe  round  about  men?  I  dare 
say  the  human  passions  and  purposes  of  the  uni- 
versal life  lay  for  countless  ages  concealed  and 
dormant  within  creation's  soul.  But  now! 
Who  can  contemplate  the  drama  of  the  divine 
life  in  the  enlarging  souls  of  men  and  yet  miss 
the  vision  of  a  creative  life  all  revealed  and  all 
a-quiver  with  human  power?  Why,  the  faith  of 
men  alone  in  their  own  eternal  value,  their  vision 
of  themselves  under  the  form  of  an  endless  di- 
vinity must  have  drawn  a  response  from  the  all- 
feeling  spirit:  the  universal  life  cannot  have 
missed  these  throbs  of  divinity  outpouring  from 


INVISIBLE  HUMANITY  OF  GOD       201 

the  newborn  souls  of  men.  How  hardly  could 
the  great  drama  of  divine  faith  have  enacted  it- 
self in  this  world-home  of  men,  had  not  the  im- 
pulses of  men's  righteousness  and  love  become 
at  once  the  deepest  concern  in  the  heart  and  being 
of  God  Himself !  Every  act  of  human  righteous- 
ness, each  impulse  of  human  tenderness  and  af- 
fection in  the  world-homes  of  men  are  intimations 
of  an  unspeakable  harmony  aimed  at  hour  by 
hour,  world  by  world,  by  the  heart  and  being  of 
the  universal  life  of  humanity,  the  God  of  man- 
kind. Human  temptations,  trials,  sins  are  but 
signs  of  a  passionate  life  eternally  present  yet 
everlastingly  mastered  in  the  divine  being,  the  in- 
visible Father-spirit  of  men. 

What  if  it  were  not  even  so?  Suppose  this 
drama  of  the  divine  in  human  life  were,  as  some 
of  the  positivists  would  have  us  believe,  enacting 
itself  on. a  human  stage  alone;  that  this  on-push- 
ing human  life  were  all  there  is  of  divinity  in  the 
world-life?  Would  not  this  divinity  triumph 
none  the  less?  Would  it  not  grow  silently,  and 
magically  extend  its  sobering,  transforming  pas- 
sion of  divine  life  to  all  men  in  all  generations? 
Would  not  men  under  the  pressure  of  the  di- 
vinity within  acquit  themselves  as  responsible  and 
infallible  gods  ?  Nay,  would  not  this  perfect  pas- 
sion of  the  human  gods  transpierce,  chasten  and 
soften  the  very  energies  of  the  heavens?  The 
complaint  of  the  positivist  is  that  men  have  relied 
too  much  upon  the  God  of  their  magic  and  super- 


202  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

stition.  Meanwhile  the  pathetic  fallacy  of  pos- 
itivism is  that  in  its  turn  it  relies  too  little  upon 
the  Man  of  its  humanitarian  vision.  In  him  is 
the  very  quintessence  of  divine  energy  and  pas- 
sion. His  belief  in  the  regnancy  over  all  things 
of  righteousness  and  love  is  inviolable.  No  crea- 
ture is  so  frail  or  debased,  and  no  creature  so 
monstrous  as  not  to  respond  to  the  touch  of  un- 
affected goodness,  faithfulness  and  purity  in  the 
world.  A  single  pin-point  of  divinity,  a  solitary 
impulse  of  natural  love  in  any  place  or  time  of 
the  world's  being  must  infallibly  master  with  its 
divine  control  all  the  awful  and  terrifying  powers 
of  the  universal  life,  bringing  all  heavens  and  all 
men  within  the  light  and  strength  of  its  con- 
stant life. 

Just  so,  I  believe,  the  divine  life  has  kept  pace 
with  the  life  within  our  human  souls,  inviting, 
guiding  and  furthering  all  our  essays  in  divinity. 
Of  every  enlargement  of  the  spirits  of  men,  of 
every  deepening  experience  in  which  the  race  of 
men  has  come  into  a  profounder  sense  of  God's 
presence  and  into  a  surer  and  more  intimate  com- 
munion with  his  world-old  life  —  we  may  rest 
assured  that  the  great  spirit  of  God  deep  down  in 
the  souls  of  men  and  far  out  on  the  horizon  of 
the  world's  vast  being,  the  great  heart  of  God 
has  known;  his  invisible  spirit  has  felt  and  has 
poured  in  its  answering  life  and  love.  Ah,  this 
unseen,  incomparable  humanity  of  God!  How 
silently  and  patiently  it  throbs  out  its  life  in  this 


INVISIBLE  HUMANITY  OF  GOD        203 

world-home  of  men.  That  is  God  alive!  —  the 
God  who  has  lived  and  grown  in  all  humanity, 
the  God  who  lives  and  grows  in  you  and  in  me 
this  night  and  eternally,  the  great  Companion  of 
our  hours  of  world-loneliness,  the  great  Physician 
of  our  nights  of  soul-sickness,  the  great  God  of 
our  souls. 

When  will  men  cease  measuring  God  in  cubits? 
When  will  we  cease  esteeming  the  divine  life  by 
the  sheer  heights  and  abysses  of  the  world's  be- 
ing? When  will  men  cease  worshipping  "  His 
Majesty  "  ?  When  shall  we  escape  this  last  form 
of  idolatry,  this  worshipping  of  a  telescopic  im- 
age of  the  unknown  God?  Then,  shall  we 
awaken  and  arise  to  the  true  depth  and  tender- 
ness of  God's  invisible  being. 

m 

There  is  only  one  tragedy  in  life  from  which 
the  human  soul  seems  unable  to  recover,  only  one 
derangement  of  life's  natural  harmony  so  fear- 
some that  the  broken  spirit  deliberates  longingly 
upon  death  eternal.  It  is  the  frightful  loneli- 
ness of  the  soul  that  has  lost  faith  in  the  com- 
panioning love  of  the  divine  life  and  sees  only 
blindness  and  cruelty  in  the  heart  of  the  sur- 
rounding world-life.  Facing  this  fearful  vision 
of  an  untrustworthy  universal  life  that  sets  it 
about,  the  human  soul  finds  the  very  majesty  that 
once  commanded  its  confidence  an  instrument  of 
torment:  calamity  impends;  one  blow,  and  this 


204  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

human  life  is  staggering  under  an  intolerable 
weight  of  sorrow  and  soul-death. 

One  night  my  path  crossed  that  of  a  lonely 
woman  of  the  world.  I  learned  that  on  that 
very  night  she  harboured  in  her  soul  a  longing 
to  express  her  life  in  a  way  of  sin.  Her  life 
cried  out  against  this  desecration  of  her  child- 
hood's innocency  and  sweet  chastity.  Yet  she 
would  offer  all  upon  the  altar  of  her  generous 
human  love.  As  one  whose  life  is  defeated  save 
for  its  poor,  human  pulse-beats  she  told  me  that 
her  soul  would  no  longer  pray.  She  believed  in 
God;  yes,  and  trembled.  The  Great  Father  was 
dead  and  her  own  soul  had  burned  itself  on  his 
pyre  until  death.  There  seemed  to  her  hence- 
forth more  of  companionship  and  tenderness  in 
the  life  of  sinful  affection  she  contemplated  than 
in  the  whole  being  of  him  she  called  God,  the 
distant  Creator  of  her  ancestral  traditions.  As 
I  turned  silently  and  solemnly  away  leaving  her 
there  in  the  night,  a  solitary  figure,  type  of  all 
the  lonely,  wandering  souls  in  this  great  world,  I 
knew  she  was  beyond  my  human  help,  lost  to  the 
arguments  of  men.  I  knew  that  only  the  infi- 
nitely human,  patient  and  hopeful  spirit  of  God 
could  ever  recall  her  soul  to  his  great  world- 
home. 

Some  years  later  I  crossed  the  path  of  another 
spirit  driven  to  the  verge  of  madness  by  this 
same  loss  of  faith  in  the  humane  presence  of 
God.     She  was  alone  and  friendless  in  the  world. 


INVISIBLE  HUMANITY  OF  GOD       205 

In  her  loneliness  of  spirit  she  sought  the  compan- 
ionship of  God  but  could  not  find  him.  A 
woman  of  refinement  with  no  impulses  to  tempo- 
rary sin  she  was  able  by  her  culture  to  find  in  God 
all  the  qualities  of  divinity  save  just  this  one  note 
of  infinite  humanity.  Power,  majesty,  law, 
righteousness  —  all  these  she  acknowledged  as 
belonging  in  the  world  being;  but  in  all  these 
she  found  no  response  to  her  trembling,  human 
needs,  no  real  presence  to  companion  her  in  the 
lonely  struggles  of  her  wakeful  night-watches. 
For  long  she  had  been  desperately  struggling 
against  the  impulse  to  give  up  her  search  for  the 
divine  companionship  and  to  end  her  life  in  a 
last,  violent  protest  against  the  lovelessness  of  the 
circumpressing  power  she  called  God. 

The  exquisite  pain  of  utter  soul-loneliness, 
when  all  forms,  human  and  divine,  appear  as  they 
were  phantasmal  and  unreal !  What  wonder  that 
the  broken  soul  seeks  relief  in  the  painlessness  of 
endless  death?  It  is  the  tragedy  of  a  soul  that 
has  lost  for  a  while  humanity's  age-long  vision 
of  God's  own  mystic  humanity.  Is  it  strange 
that  the  tearing  away  from  a  human  spirit  of  the 
silent  soul  of  its  humanity,  the  painfully  accu- 
mulated belief  of  all  human  ages  in  God's  sur- 
passing humanity  should  so  lacerate  and  maim 
that  soul  that  in  death  it  seeks  release  from  the 
horrible  aching  at  its  broken  heart?  It  is  as  if 
the  very  soul  of  humanity  had  met  a  sudden  and 
tragic  death,  as  if  the  whole  soul  of  God  had 


206  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

passed  out   of  this   world-home   of   our   human 
life. 

IV 

But  there  is  in  all  this  a  divine  compensation. 
The  loss  of  faith  in  God's  regnant  humanity  may 
torture  a  soul  beyond  all  human  endurance. 
And  yet  passing  thus  through  this  valley  of  soul- 
death  the  human  spirit,  sooner  or  later,  now  or 
then,  will  emerge  into  the  sunlight  of  God's  in- 
visible presence  —  a  presence  solemnized  and 
brightened  in  infinite  degree  by  the  vision  of  the 
soul's  black  death.  Just  so,  this  faith  in  God's 
full  humanity  may  in  the  very  hour  of  deadly 
darkness  enter  the  life  of  a  man  and  burn  in  upon 
him  a  mark  of  divinity  so  tender  and  sensitive 
that  no  calamity,  whether  of  death  or  of  life,  can 
estrange  him  from  God's  endless  humanities. 
His  soul  has  been  touched  with  a  live  fire  from  the 
altar  of  God's  eternal  humanity. 

All  other  ways  to  God  are  blind,  formal,  un- 
conceiving  except  this  way  of  mystic,  practical 
confidence  in  the  spaceless,  timeless  value  of  hu- 
man life.  God  may  by  external  marks  reveal 
the  whole  body  of  his  divinity  and  yet  his  in- 
visibly human  soul  remain  unseen.  It  is  this  un- 
seen grace  of  infinite  patience,  hopefulness  and 
human  understanding,  transforming  all  God's 
visible,  physical  energies,  that  sets  him  at  once 
beyond  the  range  of  our  physical  imagination 
and  yet  within  the  range  of  our  divinely  human 
needs.     The  divine  energy  of  God's  invisible  hu- 


INVISIBLE  HUMANITY  OF  GOD      207 

manity  pours  through  and  beyond  us  as  we  come 
and  go  upon  our  human  errands  of  mercy  and 
pity.  The  divine  sorrow,  deep  yet  comprehend- 
ing beyond  the  limits  of  our  poor  human  vision 
presses  in  upon  our  human  souls  until  round 
about  is  the  perfect  peacefulness  of  the  divine 
companionship.  This  infinite  humanity  of  God 
is  not  to  be  proved  or  measured.  His  divine  hu- 
manity must  be  touched  directly,  heart  to  heart, 
spirit  to  spirit.  We  must  let  our  human  life  with 
its  faltering  courage,  nobility  and  love  be  filled 
straightway  and  abundantly  from  the  divine  life 
with  its  world-wide  courage,  its  world-old  no- 
bility and  love. 

By  no  other  way  can  a  man  arrive  at  a  con- 
viction of  God  which  might  not  at  the  very  next 
turn  in  his  human  life  be  shaken  by  one  of  life's 
mysterious  calamities.  A  thousand  cases  of  real 
life  are  at  hand  in  every  plague-spotted  city  in 
the  world  to  show  you  that  your  dainty  demon- 
stration of  God  blinks  the  facts.  God  alive  ap- 
pears only  to  him  whose  search  begins  and  ends 
in  a  pure  and  brave  humanity.  Let  the  purity 
and  heroism  disappear  from  a  man's  belief  in 
God  and  he  will  find  himself  stolidly  worshipping 
the  wooden  deity  of  a  schoolman.  As  there  is 
only  one  kind  of  godlessness,  so  there  is  only 
one  kind  of  godliness.  The  godless  man  is  he 
who,  knowing  God  by  all  the  clever  tricks  of  the 
schoolman's  trade,  no  longer  keeps  faith  with  the 
righteous  humanity  of  God.     The  godly  man  is 


208  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

he  who  without  the  conceit  of  knowledge  yet  has 
kept  faith  with  men,  has  played  the  divine  game 
of  the  humanities  honorably,  tirelessly,  unwhim- 
peringly,  and  who  gladly  risks  his  eternal  life 
upon  the  belief  that  righteousness  and  love  are  at 
the  heart  of  things  in  this  world.  For  insensibly 
this  man  with  his  boundless  human  vision  comes 
to  practice  God's  invisible  humanity,  and  in  prac- 
ticing this  human  divinity  he  learns  that  the  in- 
finite energy  of  a  schoolman's  demonstrated  God 
is  one  in  substance  and  in  spirit  with  the  divine 
energy  that  preoccupies  all  men's  meditations 
and  leads  them  in  the  way  of  humanity. 

v 
Even  so  the  race  of  men  has  learned  to  risk 
its  unseen  future  upon  the  belief  that  its  age- 
long vision  of  an  ideal  humanity  is  but  the  vision 
of  the  deepest,  intensest  and  noblest  passions  in 
the  very  soul  of  God.  I  sometimes  glimpse  this 
vision  of  humanity's  God  alive  as  it  appears  in 
the  midst  of  the  grey  cloud  of  magic  and  super- 
stition obscuring  its  gracious  features.  It  is  a 
vision  of  a  Man  of  almightiness  and  deep  wisdom, 
a  Man  with  soul-sinews  like  brass  and  iron,  his 
form  and  features  all  marred  and  scarred  by  the 
battles  of  life,  his  person  all  quivering  and  sen- 
sitive with  the  pain  and  suffering  and  sorrows  of 
life.  A  nobleman  he  is  with  power  and  wisdom 
checked  and  controlled  in  a  perfect,  constant  pa- 
tience and  love.     In  his  everlasting  arms  he  bears 


INVISIBLE  HUMANITY  OF  GOD       209 

and  protects  a  little  child.  His  great  strength 
is  held  and  guarded  lest  by  some  accident  of  his 
very  power  he  should  injure  and  crush  this  pre- 
cious offspring  of  his  love.  His  great  wisdom  is 
bowed  down  to  the  level  of  the  simple  prattle 
of  the  child-life  he  is  bearing,  his  great  body 
a-tremble  with  the  joy  of  the  responsive  caresses 
with  which  the  child  expresses  its  perfect  trust  in 
his  great  being,  its  perfect  independence  upon  his 
great  heart.  With  infinite  gentleness  and  ten- 
der firmness  he  controls  and  guides  the  little  soul 
struggling  and  throbbing  in  his  restraining,  en- 
circling arms.  And  as  this  vision  of  the  divine 
Man  grows  clearer  and  clearer  in  the  long  course 
of  human  history,  as  his  features  becoming  more 
and  more  majestic  and  world-wide  finally  disap- 
pear in  the  invisible  depths  of  time  and  space  I 
know  that  this  divine  Man  is  God.  And  the  lit- 
tle child  is  Humanity. 


XIV 

THE  SERVILE  LIFE  AND 
THE  FILIAL  LIFE 

CLAYTON  E.  BOWEN 


THE  SERVILE  LIFE  AND  THE 
FILIAL  LIFE 

"Not  under  law,  but  under  grace." — Romans 
vi,  14. 

Were  I  a  clergyman  of  a  generation  ago,  I 
should  probably  have  entitled  this  sermon  "  The 
Pauline  Antinomy  '  Law  and  Grace '  as  a  Theo- 
logical Concept,"  and  should  thereby  have  raised 
an  effective  barrier  to  your  understanding  of  what 
I  wished  to  say.  The  phrase  I  have  quoted  as  a 
text  is  a  well  known  element  in  what  is  known  as 
"  the  Pauline  theology."  Like  many  of  the  the- 
ological phrases  of  the  New  Testament,  we  see 
it  with  our  eyes  and  hear  it  with  our  ears,  while 
failing,  in  any  real  sense,  to  understand  it  with 
our  hearts,  still  less  to  respond  to  it  in  the  atti- 
tude and  disposition  of  our  lives.  Revivalists 
used  to  complain  of  certain  people  who  were 
"  gospel-hardened,"  who  had  heard  gospel  preach- 
ing so  much  that  they  had  grown  impervious, 
entirely  immune,  to  its  proper  effects.  The  same 
thing  is  true  of  most  of  us,  I  think,  in  regard  to 
a  great  many  of  the  words  and  phrases  of  our 
religious  vocabulary;  words  and  phrases  really 
full  of  meaning  and  power,  which  would  burst 
upon  us  with  illumination  and  inspiration  could 
we  hear  them  for  the  first  time,  or  in  some  way 


214  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

be  impressed  by  their  real  meaning  instead  of  by 
their  sound  alone. 

Talleyrand  is  credited  with  defining  language 
as  a  clever  device  for  concealing  thought,  and 
the  definition  holds  true  of  many  of  our  oldest 
and  best  words.  Words  often  become  like  shells 
or  boxes,  in  which  the  original  meaning  lies  hid- 
den away  beyond  our  seeing  and  knowing.  The 
shell  is  hard  and  lifeless  —  the  heart  of  it,  could 
we  come  upon  it  direct,  bare  to  our  sight  and 
touch,  would  be  sweet  and  tender  and  palpitating 
with  undreamed  vitality.  To  use  a  figure  more 
literally  applicable,  most  of  our  words  are  pic- 
tures, that  have  become  dull  and  faded  with  age. 
Wipe  away  the  obscuring  dust  of  familiarity  and 
custom,  and  the  commonest  word  of  our  homeliest 
speech  will  often  reveal  unsuspected  color  and 
form.  How  lightly  do  we  say  church;  it  is  liter- 
ally :  the  Master's  House.  Minister  is :  the  serv- 
ant in  the  house;  priests  are  originally  the  older 
men  of  the  congregation ;  pastor  is  a  shepherd  of 
the  sheep.  When  such  words  were  first  used  in 
the  church's  life,  fresh,  vital,  untechnical,  that 
life  itself  was  fresher,  more  simple,  more  direct 
and  real.  Men  talked  simply  and  naturally  of 
the  things  nearest  their  hearts,  or  they  wrote  as 
they  were  moved  by  various  necessity,  in  joy  or 
in  sorrow,  to  rebuke  or  encourage  or  explain. 
For  us  their  living,  plastic  words  have  grown  dry 
and  formal,  have  become  terms,  and  we  uncon- 
sciously read  them  as  if  they  were  meant  thus. 


SERVILE  AND  FILIAL  LIFE       215 

If  we  could  only  feel  the  depth  of  spiritual  fervor 
that  trembled  in  the  voice  of  Jesus  as  he  spoke 
the  words  which  we  have  codified  into  "  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  " —  sermon  is  too  formal  a 
word — or  if  we  could  perceive  the  tears  of  an- 
guish, the  tremblings  of  indignation,  the  passion 
for  righteousness,  the  love  for  his  people,  which 
are  part  and  parcel  of  every  one  of  Paul's  letters, 
we  should  have,  not  a  New  Testament,  but  a 
bundle  of  human  documents  as  real  and  moving 
as  any  letters  we  keep  laid  away  in  a  safe  and 
sacred  place. 

But  inevitably,  necessarily,  we  do  not  feel  the 
original  force  of  these  ancient  utterances.  It  is 
no  one's  fault  save  Time's.  And  so  theology  is 
somewhat  in  disrepute  in  our  day;  men  feel  as 
if  its  phrases  were  formal  and  meaningless,  as  if 
the  things  it  is  concerned  with  were  unrelated  to 
the  realities  of  everyday  life.  It  is  all  very  well, 
we  say,  for  clergymen  or  theologians  to  talk 
about  law  and  grace,  or  to  dispute  over  justifica- 
tion by  faith;  the  man  in  the  pew  (or  out 
of  it)  has  no  understanding  or  interest  for  these 
things.  Religion,  we  like  to  declare,  is  our  con- 
cern, not  theology.  We  can  be  religious  and 
know  nothing  about  theology;  indeed,  emphasis 
on  theology  often  goes  with  irreligion  and  big- 
otry. 

This  contention  is,  of  course,  true;  religion  is 
our  prime  concern,  and  yet  no  man  can  be  reli- 
gious  without   some   theology.     What   does   the 


216  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

word  theology  mean?  It  is  simply:  man's  word 
about  God,  or  even:  man's  thought  about  God. 
Your  religion  is  your  relationship  to  God.  You 
cannot  have  any  conscious  relationship  with  God 
unless  you  think  about  Him,  have  some  ideas 
about  Him.  And  those  ideas,  unexpressed  or  put 
into  words,  phrased  in  a  creed  or  written  in  books, 
are  your  theology.  You  may  have  a  worse  the- 
ology or  a  better,  but  you  cannot  be  in  any  de- 
gree religious  and  have  no  theology. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  truism  that  very  much  theolog- 
ical speculation  and  discussion  has  been  unreal  and 
fruitless;  thousands  of  theological  books  are  to- 
day like  tares  fit  only  for  the  burning.  The  Jew- 
ish rabbis  used  to  discuss  learnedly  the  right  and 
wrong  of  eating  eggs  laid  on  the  Sabbath ;  Chris- 
tian scholars  have  disputed  zealously  about  angels 
and  devils  and  the  last  secrets  of  the  mind  of 
God.  Yet  all  the  absurdities  do  not  make  a  the- 
ology any  the  less  necessary  for  each  one  of  us, 
nor  take  an  atom  of  force  from  the  great  words 
and  phrases  of  those  men  of  old  who  were  really 
thinking  about  God  for  us  all,  and  recording  for 
our  help  the  highest  and  wisest  thoughts  which 
came  to  them.  The  theology  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  not  merely  a  doctrinal  course  in  the  cur- 
riculum of  a  divinity  school;  it  is  the  answer  of 
some  of  the  supremest  spiritual  seers  of  all  the 
ages  to  our  reverent  yet  insistent  question :  What 
did  you  think  about  God?  We  dare  to  hope 
that,   as  ministers   of  religion,  our  thoughts   of 


SERVILE  AND  FILIAL  LIFE       217 

God  are  to  be  worth  the  uttering,  as  a  spiritual 
service  to  men.  Any  true  man's  thought  of  God 
is  worth  his  brother's  hearing.  Surely,  the  world 
can  ill  afford  not  to  hear,  in  clear  and  certain 
tone  what  Jesus  thought  of  God,  what  Paul  of 
Tarsus  thought,  what  thought  the  great  unknown 
whom  tradition  names  John.  These  were  men 
who  had  experience  of  God,  and  knew  whereof 
they  spoke ;  they  were  men  who  had  experience  of 
human  life  in  most  diverse  phases,  and  knew  what 
human  life  might  be  when  transfigured  by  the 
thought  of  God.  That  thought  was  for  them 
indeed  "  equal  to  their  every  need,"  and  their 
utterances  never  give  expression  to  it  as  a  mere 
thought,  a  speculative  construction  of  the  mind, 
but  always  as  applied  to  their  diverse  needs,  as 
shaping  and  invigorating  and  exalting  human 
life. 

This  is  true  to  a  marvellous  degree  even  of 
Paul,  who  is  called  the  most  distinctively  the- 
ological of  New  Testament  writers.  The  fact  is 
often  noted  and  commented  on,  that  most  of  the 
New  Testament  phrases  which  have  become  the- 
ological terms  come  from  Paul.  Very  few  such 
phrases  are  found  on  the  lips  of  Jesus ;  very  few 
proof  texts  are  taken  from  his  words.  There  is 
a  very  real  difference  between  the  two  men,  Paul 
the  trained  thinker,  Jesus  without  education,  but 
living  in  direct  intuitive  experience  of  the  Father. 
Jesus'  utterances  are  never  philosophical,  but  al- 
ways personal;  they  are  never  reasoned  out,  but 


218  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

declared  with  immediate  authority  out  of  a  pure 
heart  that  saw  God.  He  did  not  set  himself  the 
task  of  creating  a  system  of  thought,  or  of  an- 
swering all  the  questions  that  arise  about  divine 
things.  He  pleaded  for  the  dominance  in  men's 
hearts  and  minds  and  souls  of  the  Thought  of 
God  —  and  all  these  things  should  then  be  added. 
If  we  ask  for  Jesus'  system  of  theology,  we 
shall  find  that  he  shared  in  substance  that  of  his 
hearers.  The  best  thought  of  his  people  about 
God  he  took  for  granted,  and  his  discourses 
mainly  concern  themselves  with  how  to  live.  If 
we  wish  to  preserve  the  distinction,  they  are  ut- 
terances of  religion  rather  than  of  theology. 
For  this  reason,  not  only  because  Jesus  was  the 
greater  spiritual  genius,  his  teachings  are  more 
sympathetic  to  the  modern  unread  man  than  are 
those  of  Paul. 

But  Paul  must  not  be  misapprehended.  En- 
tering with  marvelous  understanding  into  the  re- 
ligion of  Jesus,  he  saw  that  the  principles  implicit 
in  that  religion  demanded  a  new  kind  of  theology. 
A  new  vision  of  God  in  the  seer  translates  itself 
into  a  new  thought  of  God  in  the  thinker.  The 
old  Jewish  theology  is  no  adequate  bottle  for  the 
new  wine.  It  has  a  radical  defect  in  its  concep- 
tion of  the  practical  relationship  between  God 
and  man.  That  relationship  Paul  reconceives; 
he  remains  a  loyal  Jew,  but  a  Jew  with  a  differ- 
ence. Christianity,  as  we  know  it,  needed  the 
formative  influence  of  his  theology  as  well  as  of 


SERVILE  AND  FILIAL  LIFE      219 

Jesus'  religion.  Paul,  indeed,  never  dreamed 
that  his  thoughts  would  be  appealed  to  as  a  col- 
lection of  doctrines,  or  his  letters  regarded  as  a 
storehouse  of  raw  material  for  creeds.  For  ex- 
ample, when  he  sat  down  after  a  hard  day's  work, 
perhaps  after  having  only  just  escaped  with  his 
life  from  a  Jewish  riot,  and  wrote  to  the  people 
in  Galatia  or  in  Rome  about  justification  by 
faith,  it  was  no  abstract  point  of  doctrine  he  was 
discussing,  but  an  intensely  real  matter,  that  con- 
cerned the  happiness  and  religious  well-being  of 
every  man  among  them.  It  was  a  far  more  vital 
and  practical  matter  than  the  church  discipline 
or  church  finance  with  which  a  pastor's  letter  to- 
day may  be  occupied. 

Men  were  justified  by  faith,  not  by  works,  Paul 
told  them.  What  did  he  mean?  It  is  quite  sim- 
ple. The  one  thing  all  these  men  and  women 
wanted  was  justification  with  God,  that  is,  to  be 
such  men  and  women  as  God  would  call  just, 
good,  as  would  meet  with  His  favor.  It  is  pre- 
cisely what  you  and  I  crave  to-day.  And  all 
their  lives  those  of  their  number  who  were  born 
Jews  had  been  trying  to  gain  this  good  name 
with  God  by  observing  the  Ten  Commandments 
and  all  the  other  precepts  and  rules  we  may  read 
in  the  early  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  And 
they  had  failed.  In  the  first  place,  they  could 
not  keep  all  the  rules,  as  you  and  I  would  soon 
see  if  we  should  try  it.  And  in  the  second  place, 
when  a  man  of  quick  and  tender  conscience  and 


220  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

deep  spiritual  sensibility,  like  Paul  himself,  did 
succeed  in  keeping  the  laws  with  a  certain  degree 
of  exactness,  he  did  not  find  within  his  heart  the 
divine  witness  he  had  labored  to  attain.  Rather 
did  the  voice  within  his  soul  declare  with  solemn 
power,  "  One  thing  thou  lackest,"  yet  the  name 
and  nature  of  that  one  thing  was  not  revealed. 
"  Wretched  man  that  I  am ! "  is  the  despairing, 
disappointed  cry  of  a  man  who  has  kept  the  law, 
and  as  touching  its  righteousness  is  found  blame- 
less. And  yet  the  Jewish  theology  taught: 
Keep  the  rules  and  be  right  with  God. 

Those,  again,  who  had  not  been  born  Jews, 
perhaps  had  not  been  religious  at  all  before  they 
were  drawn  to  Christianity,  looked  at  first  to  the 
new  faith  for  some  body  of  precepts.  Give  us 
the  list  of  things  God  wants  us  to  do,  and  so, 
doing  them,  we  shall  gain  His  favor  and  the  in- 
ward peace  we  are  craving.  To  all  of  them  alike 
Paul  spoke  the  great  releasing  words :  there  is  no 
such  list.  The  whole  principle  of  getting  jus- 
tified by  keeping  rules  is  wrong.  Keeping  the 
Jewish  law  or  any  other  set  of  laws  cannot  make 
you  God's  man.  A  man  is  justified  by  faith,  and 
not  by  works  of  law.  And  what  is  faith?  Do 
not  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  faith 
means,  for  Paul,  believing  something.  It  means 
being  something  different,  living  according  to  an- 
other principle,  in  a  word,  becoming  a  child  in- 
stead of  a  servant.  The  life  according  to  law 
and  rule  is  really  a  servant's  life ;  the  master  or- 


SERVILE  AND  FILIAL  LIFE       221 

ders  his  slaves  to  do  this  and  that  as  he  will,  for 
them  every  act  and  duty  is  prescribed,  and  they 
obey  each  command  because  they  are  —  slaves. 
The  son  of  the  house  in  his  walk  and  conversation 
is  as  well  pleasing  to  the  father  as  are  the  servants, 
nay,  much  more  so ;  his  behaviour  conforms  to 
the  father's  will  as  closely  as  does  theirs ;  but  not 
because  he  is  living  under  a  code  of  orders  as  they 
are.  He  lives  the  life  the  father  desires  because 
it  is  natural  for  him  so  to  do,  because  he  loves  the 
father  and  desires  what  the  father  desires,  be- 
cause he  is  of  the  father's  kind,  in  short,  because 
he  is  —  a  son. 

That  is  the  illustration  Paul  uses.  The  mis- 
take you  Jews  and  the  rest  of  you  have  been 
making,  he  says,  is  in  regarding  yourselves  as 
servants,  is  in  living  on  the  code-of-rules  prin- 
ciple. Give  that  all  up ;  it  is  all  a  mistake.  You 
are  sons:  live  as  the  son  would  live.  Try  that 
kind  of  life,  and  you  will  find  yourselves  becom- 
ing what  you  would  be,  just  in  the  sight  of  God. 
That  is  faith,  just  daring  to  think  of  yourselves 
as  sons,  daring  to  drop  the  rules  and  live  as  sons. 
You  will  find  yourselves  as  good  as  ever  you  suc- 
ceeded in  being  on  the  old  principle;  nay,  the 
new  attitude  will  give  you  new  incentive  and  new 
power  to  live  far  nearer  to  the  ideal  of  the 
Father's  will  than  was  ever  possible  for  you 
before. 

Paul  often  connects  this  faith  with  the  name 
of  Jesus.     That  means  simply  this.     Jesus  was 


222  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

for  Paul  the  Son  of  God  in  a  special  sense,  which, 
whatever  it  meant  on  the  Godward  side,  on  the 
man  ward  side  meant  that  Jesus  knew  the  right 
principle  of  life.  By  his  example  he  showed  it 
to  other  men,  and  inspired  them  to  try  it  for 
themselves.  Conscious  always  that  he  was  a  son, 
not  a  servant,  he  lived  so  confidently  and  bravely, 
so  sweetly  and  affectionately,  the  son's  life. 
That's  the  kind  of  life  I  mean,  says  Paul ;  Jesus' 
life  is  the  thing,  a  perfect  example  of  what  God 
wants.  Faith  in  Christ  —  what  is  that  but  be- 
lieving in  that  sort  of  life,  not  as  an  isolated 
phenomenon  seen  in  Jesus  only,  but  believing  in 
it  as  what  God  wants  of  you,  and  has  made  pos- 
sible for  you?  The  life  of  Jesus  is  your  mani- 
fest destiny  written  clear,  full  of  stimulus  and 
appeal.  Put  on  that  life;  make  the  venture; 
drop  the  old  life  and  assume  this,  and  your  justi- 
fication is  assured.  You  are  what  God  wants  you 
to  be. 

That  is  all  simple  and  clear  enough,  even  prac- 
tical enough,  is  it  not?  And  that  is  just  what 
Paul  says  in  his  letters,  in  different  words  indeed, 
but  in  words  which  were  as  simple  and  clear  to 
those  he  addressed,  as  our  words  are  to  us.  That 
is  Paul's  theology,  or  a  part  of  it.  Christianity 
is  a  new  way  of  living.  And  this  explains  our 
text:  not  under  law,  but  under  grace.  Grace 
is  another  "  theological  term  " ;  Paul  meant  by  it 
just  kindness,  good  will,  favor.  You  are  not 
slaves  under  a  rigid  discipline;  you  are  children 


SERVILE  AND  FILIAL  LIFE       223 

basking  in  the  sunshine  of  a  father's  kindness. 
If  you  will  but  take  yourself  at  this  valuation, 
and  turn  to  Him  in  love  and  trust,  God  justifies 
you  freely ;  He  accounts  you  His  man ;  your  for- 
mer mistakes  and  sins  He  forgives  and  forgets ; 
all  is  well  between  you  and  Him. 

And  how  have  you  gained  that  rich  blessing  of 
perfect  adjustment  with  God?  Did  you  earn  it 
by  keeping  a  set  of  rules  in  which  He  expressed 
His  will  for  you?  Is  it  yours  by  right,  as  a  pay- 
ment which  you  may  justly  claim,  a  debt  due  to 
you  from  God,  for  value  received?  By  no 
means.  No  one  knows  better  than  yourself  that 
you  have  broken  most  of  the  laws  of  God,  in- 
stead of  observing  them  every  one;  no  one 
knows  better  that  if  you  had  to  earn  your  justifi- 
cation you  would  never  get  it.  The  best  of  men 
fail  somewhere  in  keeping  the  laws,  how  much 
more  you  with  all  your  weakness  and  wilfulness ! 
No,  this  is  no  debt  God  owes  you,  no  reward  you 
claim  as  your  just  due;  your  just  due  would  be 
something  far  different.  No,  it  is  just  pure 
kindness  on  God's  part,  pure  goodness,  pure  love. 
You  are  not  under  law,  thank  God,  but  under 
grace;  not  under  rule,  but  under  love.  God 
never  exacts  of  any  man  the  entire  keeping  of  all 
the  laws  and  precepts;  that  would  be  to  make 
slaves  of  men.  By  the  works  of  the  law  shall  no 
flesh  be  justified,  nor  did  God  ever  mean  justifica- 
tion to  come  so.  The  law  is  not  to  make  you 
just,  but  only  to  guide  you  and  keep  you  within 


ZM  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

bounds  until  you  awake  to  jour  true  position, 
enter  into  your  true  heritage.  "  A  pedagogue 
to  lead  us  to  Christ,"  Paul  calls  the  law ;  the  peda- 
gogue was  the  slave  who  led  the  child  to  school, 
and  Christ  is  the  representative  of  the  kind  of  life 
we  are  meant  to  assume,  the  life  of  free  sons  and 
daughters  in  the  Father's  house,  heirs  of  all  that 
is  His. 

We  were  born  sons  and  daughters  all,  but  we 
forgot  our  parentage,  we  sold  our  birthright,  we 
assumed  the  status  of  slaves,  and  set  ourselves  to 
please  the  Father  by  conformity  to  rules  of  shalt 
and  shalt  not.  That  was  a  wrong  to  God  as  well 
as  to  our  own  souls,  for  it  degraded  Him  into  a 
taskmaster,  and  offered  Him  obedience  when  He 
asked  for  love.  And  all  the  while  our  true  sta- 
tion is  waiting  for  our  return;  the  old  place  at 
the  fireside,  the  old  loving  intimacy,  to  be  ours  if 
we  will  but  assume  it.  We  cannot  earn  it,  we 
cannot  buy  it,  we  cannot  truly  deserve  it ;  but  the 
Father's  goodness,  grace,  makes  it  ours  on  the 
mere  condition  that  we  take  it,  that  we  assume 
our  rightful  station,  that  we  drop  the  servile  rela- 
tion and  put  on  sonship.  That  is  to  be  justified 
by  faith,  that  is  to  be  under  grace  instead  of 
under  law.  That  is  the  heart  of  what  Paul 
meant  by  Christianity;  the  discovery  and  im- 
partation  of  this  new  principle  of  life  is  what 
Jesus  had  done  for  men,  and  so  earned  his  su- 
premacy as  spiritual  friend  and  helper  of  the 
race. 


SERVILE  AND  FILIAL  LIFE       225 

I  fail  to  see  how  we  can  conceive  Jesus  and 
Christianity  otherwise.  There  are  two  kinds  of 
life,  the  servile  and  the  filial,  and  our  religion 
has  meant  the  filial  life.  I  do  not  forget  that  at 
certain  times  the  Christian  church  has  fallen  into 
as  abject  formalism  as  did  the  Jewish  church  at 
its  worst.  I  know  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
has  in  certain  past  centuries  made  the  Christian 
religion  to  consist  practically  in  the  observance 
of  a  host  of  forms  and  rules,  while  the  heart  and 
life  might  be  infinitely  removed  from  any  har- 
mony with  God.  I  know  the  legalism  that  has 
characterized  certain  Protestant  sects,  and  which 
may  still  be  met  with  here  and  there  in  many 
communions.  But  these  are  defections  from 
Christianity ;  they  are  the  direct  nullification  of 
its  central  and  original  principle,  and  they  have 
always  called  out  the  protest  of  the  truest  Chris- 
tians in  each  communion,  who  insisted  on  the  re- 
statement of  the  gospel.  So  St.  Francis  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  so  Erasmus  in  the  sixteenth, 
each  in  his  way  went  back  to  Jesus  and  the  origi- 
nal force  of  his  message,  and  so  did  a  needed 
service  to  the  great  Roman  Church.  In  modern 
times  there  is  an  ever-increasing  number  who  are 
alive  to  the  true  ideal  of  life  committed  to  the 
church,  and  insist  that  she  be  loyal  to  her  mis- 
sion. There  is  need  of  watchfulness,  there  is 
need  of  care.  Not  only  the  church,  but  each  of 
us  as  an  individual,  is  always  in  danger  of  slip- 
ping back  into  the  servile  relation,  of  regulating 


226  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

his  life  by  some  code  of  laws  which  we  may  bor- 
row from  an  ecclesiastical  or  social  tradition,  or 
may,  perhaps,  make  for  ourselves.  It  is  easy  to 
conceive  Christianity  as  a  new  law,  superseding 
the  old.  But  it  is  not  a  law  at  all;  it  frees  us 
from  law. 

We  hear  in  these  days  much  of  anarchists,  and 
we  popularly  picture  them  as  long-haired  fanat- 
ics who,  with  bombs  and  knives,  set  themselves  to 
the  assassination  of  rulers  and  the  overthrow  of 
governments.  But  we  are  told  also  of  a  more 
ideal  sort  of  anarchists,  those  who  believe  that 
man  should  be  his  own  law,  that  we  should  live 
together  as  free  and  equal  brethren,  in  mutual 
good-will  and  service,  under  no  compulsion  save 
that  of  our  purified  hearts.  That  ideal  anar- 
chistic society  can  find  realization  only  when 
we  have  men  and  women  with  purified  hearts  to 
make  up  society.  Meantime  we  recognize  the 
need  of  law  and  government,  as  pedagogues  to 
guide  us  to  the  freedom  which  is  possible  only  for 
those  who  have  reached  absolute  self-mastery. 

When  a  great  preacher  was  asked  whether 
Christianity  were  not  a  failure,  he  replied,  "  It 
has  never  been  tried."  The  world  has  not  tried 
it;  no  large  body  of  persons  has  put  its  central 
principle  into  practical  application;  no  one  of 
us  has  dared  to  live  fully,  freely,  as  a  child  of 
God,  at  home  in  God's  world,  heir  to  all  the  divine 
riches,  bound  by  no  law  save  the  law  of  our 
heart's  love  for  our  Father  and  His  will. 


SERVILE  AND  FILIAL  LIFE       JW 

"  How  hard  it  is  to  be  a  Christian ! "  says 
Browning,  hard  not  because  it  exacts  so  much  of 
us,  but  because  it  asks  so  great  faith  in  ourselves. 
We  have  not  yet  attained  the  fulness  of  its  stat- 
ure, but  we  press  on  toward  the  mark  of  our  high 
calling.  The  law  and  the  rule  we  find  still  salu- 
tary, as  leading  us  into  the  freedom  of  the  chil- 
dren of  God.  But  all  our  religious  growth  is 
growth  out  from  under  the  reign  of  law,  into  the 
dominion  of  grace.  The  perfect  man,  the  true 
Christian,  when  he  comes,  will  be  a  man  like 
Jesus;  he  will  be  Paul's  kind  of  man,  who,  in 
Paul's  fine  phrase,  is  delivered  from  corruptible 
bondage  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  children 
of  God. 


XV 
THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION 

FRANKLIN  C.  SOUTHWORTH 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION. 

THE     CLAIM     OF     THE     MINISTRY     OF     RELI- 
GION UPON    THE    ATTENTION    OF 
YOUNG    MEN 


I  have  always  believed  that  it  is  a  piece  of 
presumption  for  any  man  to  undertake  for  an- 
other the  selection  of  his  life  work.  That  selec- 
tion may  be  successfully  made  only  by  the  one 
who  will  himself  have  the  work  to  do.  There  are 
occasions,  however,  when  counsel  upon  this  im- 
portant subject  may  not  be  out  of  place;  when, 
for  example,  one  who  has  covered  not  less  than 
half  the  road  which  those  who  are  about  to  begin 
the  journey  will  have  to  travel  may  venture  to 
offer  for  the  benefit  of  his  younger  brethren,  who 
are  now  at  the  starting-point  of  their  pilgrimage 
some  suggestions  to  guide  them  on  their  way. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  these  occasions 
is  at  the  end  of  a  college  career.  At  the  time  of 
his  graduation  from  college  the  young  man  is 
accustomed  to  look  out  upon  a  universe  which  has 
been  tinted  with  the  colors  of  the  rose.  He  has 
usually  been  informed  by  one  or  another  of  the 
commencement  orators  that  the  world  is  waiting  to 
receive  him,  that  it  stands  as  it  were,  with  open 
arms  and  a  welcoming  smile  ready  to  admit  him 
into  any  sphere  of  activity  to  which  his  studies 
have  pointed  the  way. 

Then,  after  commencement,  he  begins  to  look 
about  him  in  order  to  decide  which  one  of  the 
231 


232  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

various  learned  professions  he  shall  honor  by  cast- 
ing his  lot  with  it.  He  has  been  led  to  believe  that 
great  opportunities  will  lie  at  his  door  the  mo- 
ment he  receives  his  parchment  and  steps  out 
upon  the  stage  of  life,  the  highest  product  of 
Twentieth  Century  culture,  a  college  graduate. 
But  when,  after  a  short  period  of  rest  from  his 
final  examinations,  he  turns  from  the  roseate  pic- 
ture which  has  been  held  before  him  by  the  bac- 
calaureate preacher  or  the  valedictory  orator, 
and  seeks  some  special  work  which  is  suited  to  his 
particular  attainments,  he  meets  his  first  great 
disappointment.  He  then  learns,  perhaps  for  the 
first  time,  that  the  world  is  not  standing  with 
open  arms  waiting  for  graduates  of  colleges,  and 
he  even  conceives  the  suspicion  in  some  cases  that 
it  may  not  be  waiting  for  anyone  at  all.  The 
world  seems,  indeed,  to  be  entirely  satisfied  with 
its  existing  rate  of  progress,  and  not  to  be  in  any 
way  concerned  about  the  future  career  of  the 
latest  product  of  academic  culture.  A  number 
of  years  ago,  when  upon  a  visit  to  the  city  of 
Boston,  I  called  to  see  a  college  friend  at  his 
office  on  Tremont  Street,  three  years  after  he  had 
received  his  degree  in  law.  He  came  of  a  good 
Boston  family,  had  been  an  able  student  and  had 
spent  seven  years  at  Harvard.  So  when  I  en- 
tered his  sanctum  it  was  with  pleasant  anticipa- 
tions of  finding  him  surrounded  by  his  clients, 
engaged  in  the  successful  practice  of  his  profes- 
sion.    He  sat  there,  however,  quite  alone,  with  his 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION       233 

feet  upon  the  desk  and  an  expression  of  resigna- 
tion on  his  face;  and  when  I  asked  him  how  he 
enjoyed  the  practice  of  law,  he  replied:  "  Well, 
Southworth,  to  tell  the  honest  truth,  it  is  not  what 
it  was  cracked  up  to  be."  And  when  I  found 
that  he  had  been  sitting  in  an  attitude  of  similar 
expectancy  for  three  weary  years,  waiting  for 
the  clients  who  had  not  come,  I  was  unable  to 
controvert  his  statement.  The  world  seems  not 
to  be  waiting  for  anyone  in  particular  during 
these  strenuous  modern  times.  Lawyers  are  fre- 
quently obliged  to  wait  for  clients  and  physicians 
for  patients  and  teachers  for  positions;  but  I 
have  yet  to  hear  of  an  American  city  which  has 
been  compelled  to  advertise  in  the  newspapers  for 
more  doctors  or  lawyers,  and  I  have  never  yet 
learned  of  a  vacancy  in  the  teaching  force  of  a 
reputable  school  for  which  there  did  not  at  once 
appear  a  goodly  number  of  applicants.  I  speak 
of  these  callings,  moreover,  only  by  way  of  illus- 
tration; for  they  are  not  more  seriously  over- 
crowded than  the  other  walks  of  life.  The  fact 
is  that  a  man  who  fills  a  long-felt  want  in  this 
Twentieth  Century  has  to  make  a  place  for  him- 
self. Happy  is  he  who  succeeds  in  creating  for 
himself  the  right  place;  who  discovers,  in  other 
words,  some  niche  that  he  can  fill  in  this  varied 
universe  better  than  any  other  human  being. 

It  might  be  well,  if  there  were  time,  to  call  the 
roll  of  the  various  callings  which  now  have  some 
proper  claim  upon  the  attention  of  college  men. 


234  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

Since,  however,  the  space  at  my  disposal  does  not 
suffice,  I  shall  ask  you  instead  to  consider  with 
me  the  three  professions  to  which  college  men 
in  the  past  have  most  largely  turned,  namely: 
law,  medicine  and  the  ministry,  and  then  pass  to 
the  consideration  of  some  of  the  principles  which 
should  guide  us  in  the  selection  of  a  life-work, 
whatever  that  work  may  be.  You  will  naturally 
expect  me  to  present  more  fully  the  claims  of 
the  calling  with  which  my  own  lot  has  been  cast. 
I  shall  try,  however,  to  be  fair,  and  to  interpret 
each  vocation  in  the  light  of  its  largest  possi- 
bilities and  its  foremost  representatives. 

Looked  at,  therefore,  in  its  largest  sense,  what 
is  the  office  of  the  law  and  the  function  of  the 
lawyer?  It  is,  is  it  not,  to  do  what  he  can  to 
regulate  human  conduct  according  to  principles 
of  justice  —  at  least  so  far  as  externals  are  con- 
cerned? In  a  free  country  men  are  left  to  regu- 
late their  conduct  largely  for  themselves  so  long 
as  they  do  not  infringe  upon  the  rights  of  their 
neighbors.  Since,  however,  laws  are  necessary 
even  in  such  a  country  as  this  in  order  to  prevent 
injustice  and  the  oppression  of  the  weak  by  the 
strong,  lawyers  come  into  existence  whose  func- 
tion it  is  to  interpret  the  law  and  help  in  its  ad- 
ministration. Justice,  in  other  words,  is  the 
great  word  of  the  lawyer.  To  create  a  condi- 
tion in  human  affairs  in  which  justice  shall  be 
triumphant,  is  the  end  and  aim  of  his  activity. 

Thus  the  dignity  of  the  lawyer's  calling  takes 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION       235 

its  rise  from  the  fact  that  that  calling  is  bound 
up  in  our  thought  with  the  majesty  of  the  law 
itself,  with  the  protection  it  offers  the  weak 
against  the  strong,  with  the  punishment  it  metes 
out  to  the  criminal  and  the  vindication  it  gives 
to  him  who  has  been  wrongfully  accused.  The 
high-minded  attorney  may  take  satisfaction  in 
the  fact  that  he  is  at  his  best  a  minister  of  jus- 
tice, that  through  his  efforts  an  eternal  principle 
is  vindicated,  that  by  virtue  of  what  he  does  in 
the  performance  of  his  daily  task,  the  ties  which 
bind  man  to  man  are  knit  more  closely  together 
and  society  becomes  a  more  perfect  and  a  more 
stable  thing. 

Such  is  the  conception  of  the  law  and  the  law- 
yer's function  at  its  highest.  There  is,  however, 
unhappily,  in  this  noble  calling,  as  in  other 
spheres  of  human  activity,  a  wide  gulf  between 
the  lawyer's  vocation  as  it  is  in  actual  experience 
and  this  conception  of  what  it  would  seem  that 
it  ought  to  be.  For,  although  the  law  is  con- 
cerned with  the  infallible,  eternal  principles,  the 
lawyer  is  compelled  to  deal  with  altogether  falli- 
ble human  beings.  Though  he  may  be  himself 
supremely  desirous  that  the  right  shall  prevail, 
his  services  are  frequently  subsidized  by  individ- 
uals or  corporations  who  are  interested  only  that 
their  side  shall  win.  Ideally  he  is  working  with 
the  loftiest  motives  and  for  the  holiest  ends. 
Practically  he  finds  himself  enlisted  altogether 
too  often  under  the  banner  of  some  soulless  cor- 


236  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

poration  whose  victory  will  bring  disaster  and 
ruin  to  the  homes  of  the  helpless  and  the  inno- 
cent. He  believes  in  great  principles,  but  he  is 
compelled  to  fight  in  the  interest  of  others  for 
petty  personal  ends.  Between  the  ideal  possibili- 
ties of  his  vocation  as  he  conceives  them  in  the 
beginning,  and  the  actual  tasks  in  which  it  com- 
pels him  to  engage,  there  is  a  wide  gulf  fixed. 

The  legal  profession,  however,  is  not  the  only 
one  in  which  such  a  gulf  exists.  Let  us  turn,  for 
example,  from  the  law  to  medicine  in  order  that 
we  may  note  the  situation  here.  In  this  profes- 
sion there  is  surely  an  opportunity  for  heroic  and 
disinterested  service.  To  stand  by  the  bedside  of 
the  sick  and  suffering,  to  wrestle  with  the  fell 
disease  which  wastes  the  human  form  and  banishes 
the  light  from  the  eye,  to  give  one's  days  and 
often  also  one's  nights  to  the  task  of  rescuing 
his  fellowmen  from  the  grasp  of  the  destroyer; 
this  is  a  work  that  may  well  appeal  to  the  cour- 
age and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  young  and  strong. 
In  medicine,  however,  even  as  in  the  law  and  in  any 
other  life-work  which  we  might  name,  there  exists 
a  chasm  between  the  work  of  the  physician  when 
viewed  from  afar  and  the  same  work  regarded  at 
close  range.  I  think,  however,  that  I  may  make 
this  distinction  clearer  by  asking  you  to  compare 
and  to  contrast  with  me  for  a  few  minutes  the 
two  callings  upon  which  our  attention  has  been 
fixed  with  the  one  with  which  I  am  more  directly 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION       237 

concerned,  and  for  which  I  bespeak  your  special 
interest  to-day. 

The  ministry  is  like  the  law  in  the  fact  that 
it  deals  with  eternal  principles,  principles  which 
are  enthroned  on  high  and  which  ought  to  be 
supreme  in  the  world  in  which  we  live.  But  the 
work  of  the  minister  is  unlike  that  of  the  lawyer, 
in  that  instead  of  dealing  with  the  external  mani- 
festations of  these  principles  he  is  dealing  with 
their  manifestation  in  the  human  soul.  The  law- 
yer is  interested  in  human  conduct  so  far  as  it  is 
concerned  with  the  laws  of  the  State.  The  min- 
ister is  interested  in  human  conduct  in  so  far  as 
it  is  an  index  of  the  human  heart.  One  is  ex- 
ternal and  legal  —  the  other  is  internal  and  spir- 
itual. Let  me  illustrate  the  thought  I  have  in 
mind  by  a  New  Testament  incident.  Jesus  had 
been  engaged  in  making  clear  to  a  group  of  men 
the  conditions  which  were  to  exist  in  the  kingdom 
of  God.  He  had  been  engaged,  in  other  words, 
in  setting  forth  certain  moral  and  religious  prin- 
ciples which  underlie  human  society  and  human 
happiness.  While  in  the  midst  of  this  discourse 
he  is  interrupted  by  a  request  that  he  serve  as 
arbiter  in  a  petty  dispute  which  had  arisen  be- 
tween two  brethren,  each  of  whom  was,  presum- 
ably, trying  to  get  the  better  of  the  other  in  the 
division  of  a  common  heritage.  "  Who  made  me 
a  ruler  or  divider  over  you? "  were  the  stern 
words    with    which    Jesus    greeted   this    request. 


238  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

And  then,  in  order  to  divert  their  minds  from  the 
question  of  personal  advantage  to  the  underly- 
ing principle  by  which  the  dispute  might 
promptly  have  been  decided,  he  added,  "  Take 
heed  and  beware  of  covetousness,"  realizing  that 
if  each  of  the  brethren  desired  for  himself  only 
what  was  right,  the  dispute  would  promptly  come 
to  an  end. 

A  similar  comparison  and  contrast  are  possible 
in  the  case  of  medicine  and  the  ministry.  They 
are  alike  in  that  the  minister,  like  the  doctor,  is 
a  healer  of  disease ;  but  in  the  one  case  it  is  bodily, 
while  in  the  other  case  it  is  moral  disease  with 
which  we  have  to  deal.  One  is  seeking  to  make 
out  of  his  patient  a  perfect  animal,  the  other 
would  transform  him  into  a  perfect  man.  The 
physician  concerns  himself  wholly  with  the  body ; 
the  minister's  chief  business  is  not  with  the  body, 
but  with  the  soul. 

Once  more  with  reference  to  the  conditions  of 
the  men  with  whom  the  representatives  of  these 
so-called  learned  professions  come  in  contact  in 
their  daily  walk.  I  am  compelled  to  believe  that 
the  lawyer  and  the  doctor  are  all  too  often 
brought  in  contact  with  their  f  ellowmen  upon  the 
lower  side  of  their  natures.  The  lawyer's  assist- 
ance is  invoked  as  a  rule  in  a  battle  against  the 
State  or  against  a  corporation  or  against  an  in- 
dividual, when  the  worst  passions  of  men  are  in 
the  ascendant  and  when  plowshares  have  been 
made  over  into  swords  and  pruning  hooks  into 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION       239 

spears.  The  physician  likewise  is  brought  in 
contact  with  his  fellowmen  not  in  their  normal 
healthy  state,  but  when  they  have  been  weakened 
by  suffering  and  made  querulous  by  pain.  One 
of  the  splendid  privileges  of  the  Christian  min- 
ister is  that  of  knowing  men  at  their  best  and 
highest.  Viewing  men  as  he  does  not  as  bodies 
but  as  souls,  he  tends  to  idealize  man.  Think- 
ing of  man  as  the  child  of  God  with  infinite  pos- 
sibilities before  him  and  capable  of  indefinite 
progress,  he  continually  summons  him  from  what 
he  is  to  what  he  may  become.  The  man  who  has 
faith  in  his  fellowmen  helps  to  create  in  them 
that  in  which  he  himself  believes.  He  knows  his 
fellowmen  at  their  best.  They  impart  to  him 
their  hopes  and  make  him  a  sharer  in  their  as- 
pirations. 

I  would  not  have  you  believe,  however,  for  a 
moment,  that  the  life  of  the  Christian  minister  is 
devoid  of  struggle.  He  gathers  around  himself, 
indeed,  those  elements  of  the  community  which 
make  for  sobriety,  for  temperance,  for  purity, 
for  civic  and  social  righteousness.  But  it  is  not 
in  order  that  he  may  enjoy  with  them  a  life  of 
intellectual  or  even  spiritual  companionship  un- 
disturbed by  the  thought  of  the  sin  and  sorrow  of 
which  the  world  is  full.  The  true  minister  does 
not  hold  himself  aloof  from  the  misery  and  wick- 
edness of  the  world.  He  prefers  to  attack  it, 
however,  if  he  is  wise,  not  singlehanded  but  with 
his  church  behind  him,  that  is,  with  the  assistance 


240  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

of  a  company  of  people  who  are  working  with 
him  for  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
who  will  enable  him  to  strike  when  the  time  comes 
with  the  strength  not  of  one,  but  of  a  hundred 
men. 

We  have  been  observing  these  three  professions 
thus  far  only  in  their  general  outlines.  Let  us 
turn  now  for  a  few  minutes  to  observe  the  repre- 
sentatives of  these  callings  while  engaged  in  their 
daily  tasks  —  the  lawyer  in  his  office  looking  up 
the  law,  consulting  precedents,  conferring  with 
clients  or  laboring  with  the  judge  or  jury:  the 
physician  with  his  microscope  or  his  medical 
journal,  or  with  his  patients  in  the  sick  room  or 
the  hospital:  the  minister  in  his  study  among  his 
books  or  going  to  and  fro  among  his  people,  or 
engaged  in  the  public  tasks  which  fall  to  his  lot 
as  the  servant  of  the  community,  or  conducting 
the  solemn  rite  which  unites  two  souls  for  better 
or  for  worse,  or  speaking  the  last  tender  words 
over  the  bier  of  the  dead,  or  voicing  from  week  to 
week  the  hopes  and  aspirations  of  his  people  in 
the  service  of  the  church,  or  proclaiming  the  mes- 
sage which  has  been  entrusted  to  him  in  his  func- 
tion as  interpreter  of  God's  eternal  truth.  I 
would  not  commend  the  ministerial  calling  at  the 
expense  of  any  other.  I  would  say  no  word  to 
detract  from  the  inducements  which  are  offered 
by  other  branches  of  human  activity.  But  I  am 
constrained  to  ask  where  among  them  all  can 
one  find  the  opportunity  which  the  ministry  af- 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION       241 

fords  of  meeting  face  to  face  in  his  daily  work 
the  absorbingly  interesting  question  of  man's  na- 
ture and  mission  and  destiny,  and  of  God's  past 
and  present  revelation  of  Himself  to  man.  In 
what  other  work  are  you  admitted  so  without 
question  to  the  hearts  and  firesides  of  noble  men 
and  women  and  made  the  intimate  of  their  fam- 
ily circle?  Where  else  is  a  similar  opportunity 
accorded  to  any  man  of  standing  from  week  to 
week  before  an  audience  of  sympathetic  friends, 
and  of  interpreting  some  portion  of  God's  in- 
finite truth  in  terms  of  the  finite  personalities  he 
sees  before  him? 

It  is  possible  in  other  callings  as  well  as  in  the 
ministry  to  form  abiding  and  sacred  friendships ; 
but  rarely  do  such  opportunities  come  as  are  en- 
joyed by  the  minister  as  a  legitimate  portion  of 
his  day's  work.  In  other  walks  of  life  men  may 
read  by  way  of  recreation  an  edifying  work  of 
fiction  or  an  inspiring  poem  or  gaze  upon  a  beau- 
tiful painting.  Where  is  the  man,  however,  in 
any  other  sphere  of  activity,  for  whom  the  story 
or  the  poem  or  the  picture  will  play  so  important 
and  necessary  a  part  in  the  regular  work  of  the 
week?  Every  new  vision  of  beauty,  every  fresh 
glimpse  into  the  secrets  of  the  human  heart,  makes 
the  minister  just  so  much  the  more  a  competent 
pastor  and  an  abler  preacher. 

This  brings  me  to  another  aspect  of  the  min- 
ister's life  which  has  always  been  to  me  one  of 
the  secrets  of  its  abiding  charm  —  and  that  is 


242  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

that  one  never  tires  of  it.  It  is  a  pathetic  mo- 
ment in  a  man's  career  when  he  gets  tired  of  the 
work  of  his  life,  but  I  never  knew  a  minister  who 
was  weary  of  his  calling.  In  this  calling  as  in 
every  other  there  are  at  times  men  who,  for  one 
reason  or  another,  do  not  succeed.  But  even 
when  they  realize  their  failure  they  art  apt  to 
cling  to  their  work  and  to  leave  it  only  with  the 
most  poignant  regret.  The  privilege  of  really 
ministering  to  human  souls,  of  awakening  the 
divinity  which  is  always  present  though  some- 
times slumbering  in  every  human  heart,  or  rescu- 
ing men  from  sin  and  pointing  them  toward  God, 
this  privilege,  when  once  it  has  been  enjoyed,  is 
relinquished  only  with  a  sense  of  infinite  loss. 
Men  may  indeed  become  weary  in  the  work  of  the 
ministry,  but  in  so  far  as  one  is  a  true  minister 
his  work  is  something  that  he  can  never  get  weary 

I  am  always  conscious  in  the  discussion  of  this 
subject  that  objections  to  the  ministry  are  arising 
in  the  minds  of  at  least  a  portion  of  one's  audi- 
ence, and  that  these  objections,  entertained  seri- 
ously as  they  are,  by  many  earnest  and  thought- 
ful young  men,  are  driving  every  year  into  other 
callings  those  who  might  otherwise  as  Christian 
preachers  have  been  of  incalculable  service  to 
their  fellowmen.  Most  of  these  objections  are 
the  result  of  the  failure  to  understand  the  situa- 
tion as  it  is.     Before  proceeding  farther  I  should 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION      243 

like  to  ask  you  to  consider  some  of  them  with  me 
briefly,  but  candidly. 

"  I  am  not  good  enough  to  be  a  minister,"  is 
the  declaration  which  comes  first  and  foremost. 
Now,  there  are  two  quite  different  things  which 
such  a  statement  may  mean.  If  you  mean  by  it 
that  you  are  living  by  conscious  resolution  by 
other  than  the  highest  standards,  that  knowing 
the  better  you  deliberately  choose  the  worse,  that 
realizing  as  you  do  the  meaning  of  the  age-long 
process  by  which  humanity  has  risen  from  proto- 
plasm to  beings  who  will  and  love  and  contem- 
plate themselves  as  immortal  souls  and  "  think 
God's  thoughts  after  Him,"  if  realizing  this  you 
have  nevertheless  decided  to  turn  your  face  away 
from  God  and  toward  the  brute  —  then  I  agree 
that  the  work  of  the  Christian  ministry  is  not  for 
you.  This  means,  however,  just  as  clearly  that 
you  have  decided  to  be  something  less  than  a 
man.  If,  however,  on  the  contrary,  your  feeling 
that  you  are  not  good  enough  to  be  a  minister  is 
the  result  of  your  realization  that  you  have 
failed  thus  far  to  attain  the  full  stature  of  a  child 
of  God,  it  may  be  that  your  realization  of  just 
this  fact  is  a  part  of  your  equipment.  A  minis- 
ter must,  after  all,  be  a  man.  He  certainly 
should  not  be  less,  and  it  is  impossible  that  he 
should  be  more.  He  is  fallible  like  other  human 
beings,  is  still  chained  to  earth  by  his  animal  in- 
heritance; he  makes  mistakes;  falls  sometimes  to 


244  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

rise  again ;  has  to  battle  with  his  prejudices  and 
passions;  is  humiliated  often  by  lapses  from  his 
own  high  standards ;  and  yet  in  spite  of  it  all 
persistently  follows  their  guiding  gleam  with  his 
eyes  fixed  on  the  goal,  which  is  nothing  less  than 
the  high  calling  of  God.  Such  a  one  is  some- 
times more  efficient  as  a  religious  guide  from  the 
very  fact  that  he  knows  in  his  own  experience 
what  temptation  and  struggle  mean.  Study  the 
lives  of  the  great  preachers  of  the  Christian 
Church  and  you  will  see  how  intensely  human 
they  were.  Surely  the  men  whom  Jesus  gathered 
about  him  to  be  the  apostles  of  the  new  religion 
were  not  saints  in  the  modern  sense.  They  in- 
dulged at  times  in  petty  personal  disputes ;  one  of 
them  denied  him,  another  betrayed  him,  and  in 
the  hour  of  his  greatest  need  nearly  all  of  them 
abandoned  him;  and  yet  it  was  out  of  such  reli- 
gious leadership  as  this  that  there  grew  the  great- 
est religion  in  history.  Do  not  therefore,  I  beg 
of  you,  turn  aside  from  the  ministry  of  religion 
because  you  feel  that  you  have  not  yet  arrived  at 
your  ideal  of  goodness.  If  you  were,  on  the 
contrary,  quite  sure  that  you  are  good  enough 
to  be  a  minister,  I  should  try  to  divert  you  into 
some  other  sphere  of  activity.  For  the  ministry 
has  altogether  too  many  men  who  seem  quite  sat- 
isfied with  their  own  goodness  at  the  present  time. 
Another  objection  frequently  met  is  the  lack 
of  time  or  money  necessary  for  adequate  prepara- 
tion for  religious  leadership.     As  to  the  matter 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION       245 

of  time  the  question  is  simply  how  much  the  thing 
is  worth  for  which  the  time  is  demanded.  Jesus 
was  willing  to  devote  thirty  years  to  his  prepara- 
tion for  a  ministry  which  lasted  from  one  to  three 
years.  The  Church  needs  better  ministers  than  it 
has  had  in  the  past,  and  it  requires  time  to  pre- 
pare them  adequately  for  the  work  before  them. 
But  is  there  any  other  way  in  which  time  may  be 
more  gloriously  employed?  You  may,  perhaps, 
have  been  accustomed  to  think  of  a  school  of  the- 
ology as  a  place  where  a  company  of  young  men, 
well  stocked  with  piety,  though  deficient  in  vital- 
ity and  devoid  of  interest  in  mundane  affairs, 
come  together  to  be  instructed  by  a  group  of  aged 
men  in  certain  mysteries  which  may  in  the  distant 
past  have  had  some  human  interest,  but  which 
long  ago  ceased  to  have  any  connection  with  the 
world  in  which  we  live.  But  if  that  is  the  pic- 
ture you  have  drawn  of  a  modern  school  of  the- 
ology, please  banish  it  at  once  from  your  mind, 
for  there  is  no  institution  in  the  world  more  es- 
sentially modern  and  more  essentially  human. 
The  chief  present  concern  of  such  a  school  is  not 
man  as  he  was  two  thousand  years  ago,  but  man 
as  he  is  to-day;  man  as  he  is  at  his  lowest  and 
man  as  he  may  become  at  his  highest.  How  may 
we  realize  in  our  own  day  and  generation  Christ's 
great  vision  of  God's  kingdom?  What  is  there 
in  the  human  mind  or  human  heart  that  stands  in 
the  way  of  its  coming?  What  change  in  the 
present  social  order  will  the  coming  of  His  king- 


246  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

dom  involve?  Do  you  not  see  that  these  ques- 
tions plunge  us  into  the  midst  of  the  social  prob- 
lem of  our  time,  and  that  they  are  essentially 
questions  of  the  present  day  which  stand  at  the 
very  center  of  our  modern  life?  It  is  surely 
desirable,  therefore,  that  the  time  of  the  theolog- 
ical student  should  be  given  to  such  considerations 
along  with  his  study  of  theology  and  the  Bible 
and  the  intensely  interesting  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  and  the  other  religions  of  the  world. 
For  many  a  thoughtful  lover  of  his  fellowmen 
who  is  now  in  the  maelstrom  of  a  business  or  pro- 
fessional career  from  which  he  cannot  turn  aside 
even  for  a  season,  the  privilege  of  spending  three 
or  four  years  apart  from  the  noise  and  bustle  of 
the  world  in  meditation  upon  the  central  themes 
of  human  life  and  destiny,  under  the  guidance  of 
devout  and  scholarly  men,  would  be  hailed  as  un- 
speakably precious.  Yet  no  one  to  whom  that 
privilege  has  not  been  given  can  realize  how 
precious  it  is.  To  the  candidate  for  the  Chris- 
tian ministry  this  privilege  is  given  without 
money  and  without  price. 

For  our  schools  of  theology  have  realized 
from  the  beginning  that  the  ministry  is  not  a 
money-making  pursuit.  It  is  true  that  the  grad- 
uate of  the  seminary,  unlike  the  graduate  of  a 
school  of  law  or  medicine,  is  able  to  find  at  once 
a  place  provided  for  him,  a  congregation  to 
which  to  minister  and  an  income  which  is  ade- 
quate for  his  legitimate  wants.     In  this  calling 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION       247 

youth  is  not  a  crime,  not  even  a  disadvantage. 
On  the  contrary,  the  young  minister  is  apt  to  be 
at  once  in  demand.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the 
salary  he  receives  is  looked  upon  not  as  a  means 
of  amassing  wealth,  but  as  a  means  of  support. 
It  has,  therefore,  been  deemed  just  and  proper 
that  when  one  sets  himself  apart  for  this  work  of 
service,  that  branch  of  the  church  which  he  is  to 
serve  should  make  provision  by  means  of  scholar- 
ships or  other  financial  aid  for  his  support  dur- 
ing his  period  of  apprenticeship.  Such  a  support 
is  in  considerable  measure  provided  by  all  the 
seminaries  of  this  country.  No  earnest  and 
capable  man  need  consider  himself  debarred  from 
the  privileges  they  offer  on  account  of  the  lack 
of  money. 

A  third  objection  to  a  ministerial  career  is  the 
doctrinal  one.  "  I  am  not  sure  that  I  believe," 
you  tell  me,  "  in  the  creeds  which  the  church  im- 
poses. They  seem  to  fetter  my  freedom  of 
thought  and  to  stand  between  me  and  the  truth 
of  God."  I  approach  this  question  diffidently, 
because  it  is  one  in  which  the  different  branches 
of  the  Christian  church  do  not  as  yet  see  eye  to 
eye.  It  is  a  matter  in  which  not  even  the  theo- 
logical seminaries  have  as  yet  been  able  to  take 
their  stand  upon  common  ground.  Two  things, 
however,  are  becoming  constantly  clearer:  first, 
that  more  and  more  stress  is  laid  by  the  churches 
upon  Christian  character  as  of  more  importance 
than  doctrinal  beliefs;  and  second,  that  in  some 


248  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

branches  of  the  Christian  church,  if  not  in  all, 
there  is  to  be  in  the  future  a  place  for  the  devout 
and  sincere  minister  who  dissents  from  the  major- 
ity of  his  fellow  Christians  in  matters  of  theolog- 
ical doctrine.  As  there  is  a  place  for  such  a  man 
in  the  church,  so  there  is  also  in  the  seminary  a 
growing  tendency  to  receive  as  candidates  for  the 
ministry  not  simply  those  who  feel  that  they  have 
already  attained  final  convictions  in  religion,  but 
also  those  who  are  still  uncertain  about  many 
things,  but  who  with  open  minds  are  ready  to 
follow  wherever  the  truth  shall  lead. 

The  fourth  objection  is,  as  I  believe,  the  result 
of  a  widely  prevalent  but  mistaken  notion  about 
the  minister's  work.  "  I  have  not  received  a  call 
to  be  a  minister,"  you  tell  me.  But  what  consti- 
tutes this  call?  Is  it  an  external  voice  speaking 
to  the  outer  ear,  or  an  overwhelming  experience 
stirring  you  to  the  depth  of  your  being,  and 
leaving  no  doubt  in  your  mind  that  in  this  experi- 
ence there  is  the  veritable  hand  of  God?  To 
some  men,  we  are  told,  such  experiences  have 
come.  But  they  are  rare.  They  have  failed,  as  a 
rule,  to  come  to  those  whose  labors  in  the  min- 
istry have  been  blessed  with  the  largest  results. 
Phillips  Brooks,  that  giant  among  the  preachers 
of  the  gospel  in  our  land,  the  greatest  America 
has  yet  produced,  decided  to  enter  a  seminary 
and  study  for  the  ministry  only  after  protracted 
conference  with  friends,  and  the  careful  weighing 
of  the  pros  and  cons,  joined  to  a  disastrous  fail- 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION      249 

ure  as  a  teacher  in  the  Boston  Latin  School. 
Frederic  Robertson,  of  Brighton,  England's 
most  influential  preacher  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury, had  set  his  heart  upon  a  military  career, 
and  decided  to  enter  Oxford  for  theological  study 
only  on  account  of  the  urgent  entreaties  of  his 
father,  and  after  the  army  commission  that  he 
had  hoped  for  had  failed  to  materialize.  The 
experience  of  such  men  as  these  is  sufficient  to 
demonstrate  that  the  only  real  call  to  the  ministry 
is  the  possession  of  the  qualities  and  the  character 
that  are  needed  in  the  work  of  the  ministry. 

But  a  fifth  and  final  objection  cuts  deeper 
still.  It  implies  a  thorough-going  doubt  as  to 
the  permanence  of  the  preacher's  office  and  the 
future  of  the  church  itself.  "  Is  it  not  possible," 
you  ask,  "  that  some  other  institution  may  even- 
tually usurp  the  place  which  the  church  has 
held?  "  It  is  seen  that  strong  and  earnest  men 
are  working  as  never  before  for  human  better- 
ment outside  of  the  church.  Upon  many  such 
men  the  church  has  no  longer  any  hold,  though 
they  have  united  in  secular  organizations,  either 
social  or  philanthropic,  in  the  interest  of  many  of 
the  causes  which  the  church  at  its  best  would  fain 
promote. 

The  question  is  a  fair  one,  but  it  is  not  unan- 
swerable. The  form  of  the  church's  activity 
may,  it  is  true,  be  obliged  to  adjust  itself  to  the 
changed  conditions  of  the  times.  That  work,  in- 
deed, should  be  a  challenge  to  the  consecrated 


250  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

youth  of  our  own  day  into  whose  hands  as  min- 
isters of  the  new  era  the  work  must  be  committed. 
That  men  should  cease  to  meet  together,  however, 
in  some  way  or  other,  as  members  of  the  church 
of  God,  as  brethren  in  a  common  family,  and  as 
sons  of  a  common  Father,  is  to  me  inconceivable. 
It  was  just  as  natural  that  the  disciples  of  Jesus 
should  unite  to  form  a  church  as  it  was  that  the 
disciples  of  Socrates  should  unite  to  form  a 
School. 

There  are  signs,  moreover,  that  the  great  days 
of  the  pulpit  are  in  the  future.  For  more  than  a 
thousand  years  it  has  been  affirmed  from  time  to 
time  that  the  golden  days  for  preaching  have 
passed.  But  inevitably  has  some  prophet  arisen, 
from  the  days  of  Chrysostom  and  Augustine  to 
those  of  Channing  and  Beecher,  to  prove  the 
statement  false.  "  So  you  are  intending  to  enter 
the  ministry,  are  you?  "  said  a  railroad  magnate 
a  few  years  ago  to  the  son  of  a  leading  university 
president,  when  that  young  man  sought  the  ad- 
vice of  this  old  family  friend  as  to  his  future  ca- 
reer. "  Why  don't  you  go  into  some  profession 
which  deals  with  realities?  "  I  submit  the  question 
here,  what  are  the  realities  of  life?  Do  they  con- 
sist of  railroad  stocks  and  bonds,  which  are  up  to- 
day and  down  to-morrow,  or  are  the  realities  of 
life  those  hopes  and  fears,  and  loves  and  aspira- 
tions which  constitute  our  working  and  sleeping 
selves  ?  It  is  with  such  things  as  these  that  the  true 
prophet  deals,  and  in  our  own  days,  as  well  as  in 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION      251 

the  years  which  have  passed,  whoever  plays  upon 
the  chords  of  love  and  reverence  and  aspiration 
and  draws  forth  harmony,  will  be  listened  to  with 
breathless  interest;  and  wheresoever  a  man  arises 
in  whose  heart  there  burns  the  true  prophetic 
fire,  men  will  gather  about  him  as  they  have  gath- 
ered of  yore  in  order  to  be  taught  the  way  in 
which  to  walk. 

"  While  swings  the  sea,  while  mists  the  mountain 
shroud, 
While  thunder's  surges  burst  on  cliffs  of  cloud, 
Still  at  the  prophets'  feet  the  nations  sit." 

And  now  a  word  as  to  when  the  choice  of  a 
vocation  should  be  made,  and  as  to  the  class  of 
men  to  which  the  ministry  ought  particularly  to 
appeal.  Make  your  choice,  I  beg  of  you,  in 
your  best  and  highest  moments,  when  you  see  life 
clearly  and  see  it  whole.  Matthew  Arnold  has 
truly  told  us, 

"  The  tasks  in  hours  of  insight  willed 
May  be  in  hours  of  gloom  fulfilled." 

Do  not  make  your  choice,  therefore,  when  you 
are  cast  down  by  discouragement  or  weakened 
by  failure,  or  depressed  by  doubt.  Make  it,  on 
the  contrary,  at  the  moment  of  your  supremest 
faith  in  yourself,  when  you  realize  that  God  needs 
your  cooperation  in  order  that  His  kingdom  may 
come  and  His  will  may  be  done.     Then,  having 


252  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

chosen,  judge  your  profession  in  the  light  of  its 
noblest  representatives,  not  perhaps  in  the  light 
of  those  who  are  most  prominent,  but  in  the  light 
of  those  who  most  perfectly  embody  the  ideal  of 
what  you  wish  to  be.  For  one  unconsciously 
grows  to  resemble  in  thought  and  deed  those 
whom  he  most  admires. 

I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  there  are 
those,  as  it  seems  to  me,  to  whom  the  Christian 
ministry  can  make  no  legitimate  appeal.  The 
ministry  has  no  valid  claim  upon  the  young  man 
who  has  lost  his  ideals,  who  is  destitute  of  enthu- 
siasm, who  is  unwilling  to  give  himself  passion- 
atety  without  thought  of  the  consequences  to 
some  great  unselfish  work.  It  has  no  need  of  the 
youth  who  plays  no  games,  who  makes  no  friends, 
who  is  only  languidly  interested  in  life,  and  who 
gets  weary  with  every  serious  task  before  it  is 
half  done.  It  does  not  need  the  man  who,  al- 
ready at  the  age  of  twenty  or  twenty-two,  has 
ceased  to  believe  in  woman's  virtue  or  man's  fidel- 
ity or  the  capacity  of  his  fellows  to  work  together 
unselfishly  for  the  common  good.  It  does  not 
require  the  man  to  whom  the  jingle  of  the  guinea 
is  a  sweeter  sound  than  the  commendation  of  his 
conscience  when  its  still,  small  voice  utters  the 
words,  "  Well  done,"  nor  for  whom  the  amassing 
of  a  fortune  is  a  more  alluring  task  than  playing 
the  part  of  a  real  man  in  life's  engrossing  drama. 

The  ministry  does  need  the  man  who  is  ca- 
pable   of   generous    emotions    and   noble    enthu- 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION       #53 

siasms.  It  has  work  for  him  to  do  who  has 
not  lost  faith  in  the  capacity  of  his  fellowmen 
for  high  achievements,  who  is  essentially  an  op- 
timist, believing  that  the  best  which  has  yet  been 
attained  is  but  a  promise  of  something  better  that 
is  to  come  —  the  man  who  sees  visions  and  dreams 
dreams,  and  then  is  willing  to  work  and  wait  that 
the  vision  may  become  a  reality.  Such  a  man  as 
this,  living  in  the  beginning  of  this  glorious 
Twentieth  Century,  a  citizen  of  a  free  republic 
that  is  vibrating  from  center  to  circumference 
with  new  ambitions,  and  awakening  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  new  opportunities  will  feel  that  it  is 
a  splendid  privilege  to  have  a  part  in  the  great 
creative  work  that  is  entrusted  to  the  Christian 
minister  in  this  critical  epoch  in  the  world's 
history. 

Such  a  man,  moreover,  will  give  a  larger  and 
broader  interpretation  to  the  ministry  of  religion 
than  has  ever  been  given  in  the  past.  Religion 
has  been  represented  as  a  method  of  escaping 
penalties,  or  as  a  revelation  to  a  chosen  few,  or  as 
something  to  be  attained  by  prayers  or  sacra- 
ments or  ceremonials.  Though  religion  may  be 
all  of  these  things,  it  is  something  inexpressibly 
greater.  Have  no  fear  lest  religion  may,  at  some 
future  time,  disappear  from  the  earth,  for,  as 
has  been  truly  said,  "  Man  is  incurably  religious." 
Religion  is  a  mighty  force  that  has  come  to  us 
from  far  down  the  centuries,  gathering  impetus 
and  power  as  it  has  advanced.     It  has  enthroned 


254  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

and  dethroned  monarchs.  It  has  made  and  un- 
made empires.  The  work  of  the  minister  of  reli- 
gion is  to  bring  this  force  to  fruition  in  the  time 
in  which  we  live;  in  the  creation  of  finer  char- 
acters, in  the  molding  of  a  more  perfect  society, 
in  making  Christ's  great  law  of  love  to  God  and 
man  a  present  reality  in  this  work-a-day  world. 

And,  finally,  I  would  press  the  question  home 
upon  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  any  young 
man  or  woman  to  whom  these  words  may  come, 
what  is  the  thing  which  you  wish  to  do  more  than 
anything  else  with  the  life  that  God  has  given 
you  ?  Look  with  me,  if  you  can,  a  score  of  years 
ahead  down  into  the  early  part  of  the  1930's, 
when  the  young  men  of  to-day  will  already  have 
reached  middle  life  with  youth  left  far  behind. 
How  will  it  be  at  that  time  with  the  ideals  of  your 
youth?  Will  they  also  have  vanished  in  the 
flight  of  years?  Will  the  bright  vision  of  your 
college  days  have  given  place  to  the  self-satisfac- 
tion of  material  prosperity,  and  will  the  lust  of 
power  and  greed  for  gain,  or  the  desire  for  the 
praise  of  men,  find  you  twenty  years  from  now 
bereft  of  the  generous  hopes  and  enthusiasms 
which  are  yours  to-day?  How  often,  alas,  in 
human  experience  has  this  proven  true !  "  How 
many  young  men,"  says  Mazzini,  "  have  I  not 
met  at  the  commencement  of  their  career  glowing 
with  enthusiasm  and  filled  with  the  poetry  of 
great  enterprises,  whom  I  see  to-day  precocious 
old  men,  with  the  wrinkles   of  cold  calculation 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION       255 

upon  their  brows,  calling  themselves  free  from 
illusion  when  they  are  only  disheartened,  and 
practical  when  they  are  only  commonplace." 
One  of  the  saddest  moments  which  can  come  to  a 
human  being  is  that  in  which  he  leaves  his  ideals 
behind,  when  he  sees  the  vision  of  his  youth  van- 
ishing before  his  eyes,  as  one  of  the  illusions 
which  was  too  good  to  be  true. 

To  every  man  who  goes  forth  to  his  life  work 
the  choice  is  offered  between  the  various  ideals 
which  have  made  their  appeals  for  ages  to  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  men.  It  is  at  this  time  that 
there  come  trooping  before  him,  as  if  in  a  gor- 
geous procession,  the  different  objects  of  desire 
which  have  a  claim  to  make  upon  his  allegiance. 
Fame  comes,  declaring  that  if  he  will  walk  her 
way  his  name  will  be  blazoned  abroad  and  his 
deeds  will  be  praised  throughout  his  lifetime  by 
great  numbers  of  his  fellowmen.  Wealth  comes, 
telling  him  of  the  possibilities  of  power  and  ease 
that  he  before  him  if  he  will  go  with  her.  Pleas- 
ure appears,  arrayed  in  glittering  apparel,  and 
presenting  an  enticing  picture  of  the  gifts  which 
her  hands  may  bestow.  And  last  of  all,  after 
the  procession,  with  all  its  pomp  and  pageantry 
has  come  almost  to  an  end,  there  appears  a  more 
modest  figure  with  little  outward  adornment,  who 
tells  him  when  he  asks  her  who  she  is :  "  My 
name  is  Service.  The  path  in  which  I  walk  is 
sometimes  rough  and  sometimes  steep  and  some- 
times narrow.     The  man  who  follows  me  therein 


256  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

is  not  always  greeted  with  acclamations  from  the 
crowd,  nor  are  palm-branches  strewn  before  him 
as  he  advances.  But  if  you  choose  the  path  in 
which  I  tread,  your  way  will  be  lit  by  the  light  of 
divine  ideals.  You  will  be  confronted  as  you  pro- 
ceed by  many  obstacles.  At  times  the  sun  will 
hide  its  face,  and  the  moon  will  no  longer  send 
down  its  beams,  and  you  will  be  compelled  to 
struggle  forward  in  the  darkness,  unaided  and 
alone.  But  as  you  proceed  the  darkness  will 
be  relieved  from  time  to  time  by  the  light 
of  the  hearts  which  you  have  gladdened  by 
the  way,  and  if  you  continue  on  your  course 
the  path  will  grow  ever  smoother  and  the  light 
ever  brighter  unto  the  perfect  day."  I  would  in- 
vite you  to  this  way  of  service  as  the  only  way  to 
fulness  of  life,  the  way  to  the  achievement  of 
true  manhood  and  womanhood,  to  the  attainment 
of  life's  choicest  pleasures  and  life's  richest  re- 
wards. 

And  upon  the  attention  of  some  of  you  at 
least,  I  wish  I  might  say  many  of  you,  I  would 
urge  the  ministry  of  religion,  not  as  the  only  way 
of  service,  but  as  one  of  the  avenues  of  service 
which  is  worthy  of  consideration  by  the  best  and 
bravest  of  our  American  youth.  Has  some 
thought  come  to  you,  as  thoughts  used  to  come 
to  the  prophets  of  old,  from  out  of  the  depths  of 
your  experience,  in  one  of  those  mysterious  ways 
in  which  God  works  upon  the  human  soul;  some 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  VOCATION       257 

thought  which  makes  the  horizon  of  your  life 
broader,  its  mountain  peak  more  majestic,  its 
duties  more  commanding?  This  thought  was 
given  you  not  for  your  private  delectation.  It 
was  given  as  a  trust  to  hold  for  the  benefit  of 
your  fellowmen.  Paul,  the  Apostle,  after  he  had 
become  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  gospel  of 
Jesus,  saw  in  his  imagination  a  man  from  Mace- 
donia holding  out  to  him  mute  hands  of  entreaty 
and  seeming  to  beg  him  to  come  to  that  distant 
land  as  a  messenger  of  the  new  faith. 

To  become  conscious  of  the  need  even  on  the 
part  of  people  in  a  foreign  land  meant  for  him 
to  resolve  at  once,  whatever  personal  hardship  it 
might  involve,  to  go  to  their  relief.  To-day  it  is 
not  from  foreign  lands  alone  that  the  cry  comes 
to  our  ears  for  preachers  of  the  glorious  gospel 
of  the  blessed  God.  The  church  of  Jesus  Christ 
needs  leaders  in  the  land  in  which  we  live  —  needs 
them  as  she  has  rarely  needed  them  before,  needs 
more  men  and  better  men  for  the  inspiring  work 
of  emancipation  that  confronts  her,  in  the  new 
era  which  we  are  entering.  God  grant  that  the 
cry  may  come  with  increasing  power  to  those 
whose  ears  it  ought  to  reach,  and  that,  more  and 
more,  as  there  dawns  upon  the  mind  of  any 
earnest  man,  an  uplifting  idea  or  illuminating 
thought,  there  may  come  into  his  heart  at  the 
same  time  a  consuming  desire  to  incarnate  that 
thought  in  the  ever  changing,  ever  growing  life 


£58  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

of  his  fellowmen.  This  privilege  is  in  a  measure 
that  of  every  child  of  God.  It  is  the  special 
privilege  of  him  to  whom  it  has  been  permitted  to 
become  a  minister  of  the  Christian  Church. 


XVI 

RETRIBUTION  HERE  AND 
HEREAFTER 

WILLIAM  H.  FISH 


RETRIBUTION  HERE  AND  HEREAFTER 

In  the  sixty-second  Psalm  we  read,  "  Unto 
thee  belongeth  mercy,  for  thou  renderest  unto 
every  man  according  to  his  work."  The  doctrine 
of  everlasting  punishment,  as  it  has  been  com- 
monly taught  in  the  church,  is  plainly  incon- 
sistent with  these  words.  That  a  Being  who 
punishes  the  sins  committed  in  this  short  life  with 
an  infinite  penalty  does  not  render  to  every  man 
according  to  his  work,  and  that  such  a  Being  can- 
not be  properly  called  merciful,  is  coming  to  be 
more  and  more  clearly  recognized  by  many  in  all 
denominations.  Never  before  in  the  history  of  the 
world  has  there  been  so  deep  and  widespread  a 
faith  in  the  goodness  and  mercy  of  God  as  there 
is  at  the  present  time.  Never  before  has  there 
been  so  earnest  an  effort  to  bring  the  doctrines  of 
the  church  into  harmony  with  the  divine  revela- 
tion in  the  human  heart. 

Nevertheless,  is  it  not  possible  that  there  is 
loss  as  well  as  gain  in  this  advance?  Do  those 
who  are  called  Liberal  Christians  sufficiently  ap- 
preciate the  absolute  inflexibility  of  the  eternal 
justice?  Do  we  always  clearly  see  that  He  to 
whom  mercy  belongs  must  render  to  every  man 
exactly  according  to  his  work,  whether  it  be  good 
or  evil?  This  is  a  side  of  the  question  which  we 
too  often  overlook.  In  the  earnestness  with  which 
we  urge  the  importance  of  doing  right  because 
261 


262  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

it  is  right,  we  are  apt  to  leave  out  of  view  those 
considerations  in  regard  to  consequences  which 
we  are  really  bound,  as  reasonable  beings,  to 
take  into  account.  We  cannot  indeed  make  too 
great  a  demand  on  the  infinite  riches  of  divine 
love ;  nor  can  we  insist  too  strongly  on  the  obliga- 
tion resting  upon  us  to  do  right  under  all  cir- 
cumstances whatever  the  result  to  ourselves  may 
be.  But  it  would  certainly  help  us  to  a  bet- 
ter understanding  of  the  way  in  which  the  love  of 
God  operates,  it  would  immensely  strengthen  and 
confirm  our  good  purposes,  if  we  could  somehow 
get  a  clearer  and  deeper  insight  into  the  working 
of  the  great  law  of  consequences  in  the  moral 
world. 

In  the  natural  world  we  learn  very  early  to  ap- 
preciate its  importance.  Even  infants  begin  to 
understand  it.  "  The  burnt  child  dreads  the 
fire,"  because  it  has  found  out  by  painful  ex- 
perience something  about  this  great  law.  Much 
of  our  early  education  is  of  a  similar  character. 
In  our  relations  with  the  outward  world,  as  we 
gradually  discover,  the  law  of  consequences  is  ab- 
solutely invariable.  This  lesson  is  repeated  so 
often  and  in  so  many  ways  that  it  seems  at  last 
to  form  a  part  of  our  consciousness,  and  all  our 
calculations  are  based  upon  it.  On  the  thorough- 
ness with  which  we  learn  it,  indeed,  our  very  ex- 
istence depends.  If  the  farmer  did  not  know 
that  the  wheat  which  he  sows  in  the  spring  would 
produce  wheat,  and  not  grass  or  weeds,  he  would 


RETRIBUTION  HERE  AND  AFTER     263 

have  little  motive  for  exertion  and  would  soon 
starve.  In  this  department  of  activity  and  in  ev- 
ery other  branch  of  industry  —  in  all  the  profes- 
sions also  —  nearly  every  act  is  performed  with 
tacit  reference  to  the  invariability  of  the  law  of 
consequences. 

In  morals  it  is  often  otherwise.  In  the  moral 
domain  there  are  many  persons  who  expect  to 
reap  where  they  have  not  sown  and  to  gather 
where  they  have  not  strewed.  Is  it  not  so? 
Look  around  and  see.  Here  is  one  man  intent 
upon  cheating  his  neighbor ;  another  going  about 
whispering  slanderous  tales  from  ear  to  ear;  a 
third  leading  an  impure  life;  a  fourth  showing 
the  foulness  within  himself  by  filling  the  air  with 
foul  language.  Do  they,  and  others  like  them, 
expect  any  evil  consequences  to  follow  from  such 
acts?  Practically  they  do  not;  they  count,  in- 
deed, upon  gaining  certain  advantages  of  pleas- 
ure or  profit  without  experiencing  any  counter- 
balancing drawbacks.  But  they  are  doomed  to 
disappointment.  The  law  of  consequences  does 
not  operate  with  infallible  accuracy  in  other  de- 
partments to  fail  for  the  first  and  only  time  here. 
Without  dwelling  on  the  remorse  which  we  must 
surely  suffer,  sooner  or  later,  for  every  wrong  of 
which  we  are  guilty,  we  can  easily  see  after  a 
moment's  reflection  what  are  some  of  the  worst 
and  most  serious  of  the  evil  effects  which  evil 
causes  inevitably  produce.  The  man  who  cheats 
his  neighbor,  to  return  to  one  of  the  cases  al- 


264  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

ready  mentioned,  expects,  provided  he  is  not 
found  out,  to  be  better  off  than  before  on  account 
of  the  unfair  advantage  he  has  taken.  But  what 
is  the  actual  fact?  The  actual  fact  is  that  one 
act  of  dishonesty  prepares  the  way  for  a  second 
and  makes  it  a  great  deal  easier  than  it  would 
otherwise  have  been.  When  two  such  acts  have 
been  committed  a  third  is  almost  sure  to  follow, 
and  before  long  a  dishonest  habit  is  formed  which 
becomes  a  part  of  the  man's  character.  Is  not 
that  an  evil?  He  does  not  feel  it  to  be  so,  you 
may  say.  Perhaps  not,  at  the  present  moment, 
but  what  of  that?  Are  there  no  evils  except 
those  of  which  we  are  immediately  conscious? 
The  professional  thief  or  burglar  may  not  be 
sensible  of  the  evil  of  his  condition;  he  has  sunk 
into  it  by  such  gradual  steps  that  he  is  quite  un- 
conscious that  his  character  has  undergone  any 
important  change  since  the  days  of  his  innocent 
childhood.  But  do  you  envy  him  his  state  of 
mind?  Would  you  exchange  places  and  person- 
alities with  him  for  any  consideration  of  which 
you  can  possibly  conceive?  To  know  just  how 
God  renders  to  such  a  man  according  to  his  work 
it  would  be  necessary  to  understand  his  most  se- 
cret thoughts.  But  who  that  knows  the  peace  of 
a  mind  conscious  of  perfect  integrity  can  fail 
to  look  with  pity  upon  one  in  his  condition? 

Look  at  another  case.  How  common  is  the 
habit  of  exaggeration  for  the  sake  of  producing 
an  effect.     Many  of  us  are  or  have  been  tempted 


RETRIBUTION  HERE  AND  AFTER    265 

to  fall  into  it.  What  possible  harm  can  there 
be,  perhaps  we  say  to  ourselves  when  we  are  anx- 
ious to  make  some  fact  or  incident  that  we  are 
relating  interesting  to  our  audience  —  what  pos- 
sible harm  can  there  be  in  adding  a  few  details 
drawn  from  the  imagination  rather  than  the  mem- 
ory to  make  the  story  more  impressive  or  pic- 
turesque? Who  can  be  harmed  by  such  a  trifle? 
Unquestionably  we  shall  be  harmed  in  a  way  of 
which,  it  may  be,  we  little  dream,  if  we  yield  to 
that  temptation  —  if,  while  professing  to  give  a 
truthful  account  of  what  we  have  seen  or  heard, 
we  consciously  make  statements  that  are  not  true. 
We  have  doubtless  all  known  persons  in  whose 
word  we  have  never  been  able  to  place  the  slight- 
est confidence  —  habitual  liars.  Perhaps  we  have 
looked  upon  them  with  that  half-contemptuous 
feeling  of  superiority  which  is  so  often  the  atti- 
tude of  those  who  think  themselves  strong  toward 
the  weak.  Have  we  ever  stopped  to  ask  how  they 
have  been  reduced  to  so  deplorable  a  condition? 
In  many  cases,  without  doubt,  the  evil  begins  in 
yielding  to  just  such  temptations  as  those  which 
at  first  seem  of  such  trifling  importance.  Con- 
scious inaccuracy  becomes  after  a  while  uncon- 
scious inaccuracy.  Those  who  are  guilty  of  it 
are  in  time  unable  to  tell  the  truth  —  unable,  at 
last,  to  distinguish  between  truth  and  falsehood; 
and  to  this  result  every  exaggerated  statement 
that  they  have  made  has  directly  contributed. 
So  the  law  of  consequences,  from  which  there  is 


266  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

no  more  hope  of  escape  than  from  the  law  of 
gravitation,  has  again  its  fulfilment. 

Take  one  more  example.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
retribution  that  falls  upon  those  who  live  chiefly 
for  material  interests  that  their  spiritual  percep- 
tions are  weakened  and  sometimes  almost  de- 
stroyed. Such  men  are  commonly  as  unconscious 
as  the  thief  or  the  habitual  liar  of  the  evil  state  to 
which  they  have  reduced  themselves.  They  do 
not  realize  that  there  is  anything  exceptional  in  it 
and  they  fancy  their  own  condition  to  be  that  of 
all  mankind.  Because  they  have  no  power  of 
spiritual  vision  they  think  other  men  must  be 
equally  blind,  and  they  regard  those  who  speak  of 
things  which  eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard  as 
either  hypocrites  or  fools. 

The  most  serious  feature  in  the  operation  of 
the  law  of  consequences  still  remains  to  be  men- 
tioned. It  is  the  lasting  and  far-reaching  effect 
which  our  evil  deeds  produce  upon  other  people. 
How  many  wrecks  of  humanity  —  men  and  women 
once  pure  and  innocent,  now  vile  and  degraded  — 
are  encountered  in  a  walk  through  certain  dis- 
tricts of  a  great  city.  Beyond  all  doubt  many 
of  these  miserable  creatures,  ruined  in  body  and 
soul  alike,  were  at  first  the  victims,  rather  than 
the  voluntary  partners,  of  the  sins  of  others ;  and 
whenever  a  man  who  has  made  himself  responsi- 
ble for  the  destruction  of  another's  life  is  brought 
to  a  realizing  sense  of  his  guilt  and  becomes  in- 
spired with  a  desire  and  purpose  to  make  atone- 


RETRIBUTION  HERE  AND  AFTER     267 

ment  for  it,  how  terrible  must  be  the  retribution 
which  he  suffers  when  he  discovers  that  it  is  ap- 
parently irreparable  —  that  the  lives  which  he 
has  destroyed  are  beyond  the  reach  of  any  in- 
fluence for  good  which  he  can  now  exert. 

Can  we  believe  that  mercy  belongs  to  Him 
who  has  ordained  this  law?  Is  it  a  God  of  love 
> —  our  Heavenly  Father  —  who  visits  our  of- 
fenses with  so  heavy  a  penalty?  Before  we  try 
to  answer  this  question  we  must  recall  the  fact 
that  the  law  has  another  side  —  that  it  is  the 
great  law  of  progress.  So  far  it  appears  to  be 
only  a  gigantic  agency  for  increasing  and  spread- 
ing the  power  of  evil.  But  it  is  just  as  effective 
in  the  opposite  direction.  If  an  evil  cause  is 
surely  followed  by  an  evil  effect,  a  good  cause  is 
just  as  surely  followed  by  a  good  effect.  If  dis- 
honesty, lying,  and  other  sins  tend  to  become 
habitual  and  produce  after  their  kind,  so  do 
honesty,  truthfulness,  and  other  virtues  tend  to 
become  habitual  and  produce  after  their  kind. 
God  rendereth  to  the  good  man  according  to  his 
work  as  well  as  to  the  evil  man  according  to  his 
work.  By  virtue  of  this  law  the  good  actions 
which  are  at  first  done  with  painful  effort  in  time 
so  form  the  character  that  they  are  performed 
spontaneously,  without  even  the  trouble  of  think- 
ing about  them;  and  so  the  will  is  left  free  to 
fight  new  battles  and  gain  new  victories  to  be 
assured  in  the  same  way.  What  habitually  truth- 
ful person  has  to  try  to  tell  the  truth  in  any 


268  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

individual  instance?  What  man  in  whom  tem- 
perance has  been  the  unvarying  practice  of  his 
life  ever  has  to  try  to  avoid  the  enticements  of 
the  saloon?  Even  the  greatest  spiritual  bless- 
ings are  assured  to  us  by  this  law.  As  James 
Freeman  Clarke  says,  "  By  trusting  God  when 
we  hardly  see  Him  at  all,  we  come  at  last  to  re- 
alize, as  by  another  sense,  His  presence  in  all 
things.  By  praying  to  Him  when  we  can  only 
say,  '  0  God,  if  there  be  a  God,  save  my  soul,  if  I 
have  a  soul,'  we  at  last  learn  to  talk  with  this 
Heavenly  Friend  as  we  would  with  an  earthly 
friend.  .  .  .  Faith  in  God,  at  first  an  ef- 
fort, becomes  automatic  and  instinctive," 

Nevertheless,  to  many  this  will  hardly  seem  a 
sufficient  vindication  of  the  mercy  and  love  of 
God  if  it  still  remains  true  that  millions  of  His 
children  are  doomed  to  sink  lower  and  lower  in 
darkness  and  sin  as  long  as  they  live  —  that  to 
multitudes  existence  will  become  an  unmitigated 
curse.  This  would  seem  to  be  the  logical  issue 
of  the  law  of  consequences  on  the  side  on  which 
we  have  chiefly  examined  its  operations ;  and,  in- 
deed, this  is  the  foundation  upon  which  certain 
representatives  of  modern  orthodoxy  base  a  new 
argument  for  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment. 
The  possession  by  man  of  free  will,  it  is  said, 
implies  the  possibility  of  sinning,  and  therefore 
of  suffering,  for  ever,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  we 
know  that  character  tends  to  final  permanence. 
After  a  certain  point  is  reached,  while  to  the 


RETRIBUTION  HERE  AND  AFTER     269 

good  virtue  becomes  the  fixed  habit  of  their  lives, 
the  bad,  as  we  have  seen,  are  confirmed  in  their 
wickedness  and  even  grow  more  wicked.  There 
are  plainly  some,  therefore,  who  will  fall  into 
that  state  of  permanent  dissimilarity  with  God 
which  constitutes  eternal  perdition.  If  Iago 
and  Mephistopheles  should  repent,  they  would 
by  that  very  act  be  saved,  for  salvation  is 
similarity  with  God;  and  they  will  not  repent. 
They  will  sin  eternally  and  they  will  suffer  eter- 
nally. The  argument  is  undeniably  a  strong  one 
—  so  strong,  indeed,  that  some  Unitarian  theo- 
logians are  only  saved  from  accepting  the  con- 
clusion to  which  it  appears  to  lead  by  assuming 
that  the  persistently  wicked  will  finally  perish  — 
that  as  conscious  individuals,  at  least,  they  will 
cease  to  exist.  This  is  a  way  of  cutting  the  knot 
which  appears  to  me  inadmissible. 

Is  it  then  true,  this  doctrine  of  endless  punish- 
ment, after  all?  Are  there  men  and  women  and 
little  children  in  this  city,  in  every  city,  to-day 
who  are  destined  to  be  eternally  miserable  ?  —  to 
whom  existence  will  become  an  intolerable  burden, 
from  which,  nevertheless,  they  can  never  hope  to 
escape  ?  Our  fathers  shuddered  at  the  thought  of 
endless  physical  pain;  but  what  is  that  in  com- 
parison with  the  misery  of  anticipating  and  en- 
during through  countless  millions  of  millenniums 
an  unbroken  succession  of  the  dreadful  fruits  of 
sin?  "  All  hope  abandon,  ye  who  enter  here  "  is 
the  terrible  sentence  which  will  burn  in  the  hearts 


270  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

of  the  lost  if  it  be  not  written  above  the  door  of 
their  abode,  and  in  that  feeling,  since  hope  is  the 
chief  solace  and  cheer  of  all  human  existence, 
will  consist  their  worst  suffering.  All  this  and 
more  must  follow  if  the  doctrine  of  endless  pun- 
ishment is  true,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  taught 
even  by  modern  orthodoxy. 

Is  it  true?  Has  anything  been  left  out  in  the 
reasoning  which  seems  to  make  it  so  certain? 
Nothing,  it  seems  to  me,  except  the  two  most 
important  of  all  the  elements  in  the  problem,  the 
essential  indestructibility  of  the  germ  of  good, 
the  spark  of  divinity,  that  exists  in  every  human 
soul,  and  the  infinite  love  of  God.  "  Know  ye 
not,"  says  the  apostle,  "  that  ye  are  the  temple 
of  God,  and  that  the  spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in 
you? "  The  temple  may  be  defiled,  the  spirit 
may  have  ceased  to  manifest  itself,  the  germ  of 
good  may  be  buried  under  layer  after  layer  of 
evil  thoughts  and  evil  habits  so  deep  that  no  trace 
of  its  existence  seems  discoverable.  That  state 
of  final  permanence  to  which  we  are  told  all 
character  tends  may  apparently  have  been 
reached.  And  yet  how  many  such  cases  we  have 
known,  even  within  the  limits  of  this  short  life,  in 
which  the  hidden  germ  has  been  suddenly  quick- 
ened and  the  character  has  been  entirely  trans- 
formed! The  seemingly  hopeless  drunkard  has 
become  the  ardent  temperance  apostle,  the  aban- 
doned profligate,  delivered  from  his  evil  life, 
devotes  himself  to  saving  others.     The  records 


RETRIBUTION  HERE  AND  AFTER     271 

of  the  Salvation  Army  are  crowded  with  such  in- 
stances. Those  who  have  heard  Mrs.  Ballington 
Booth  tell  the  story  of  her  work  among  the  con- 
victs of  our  state  prisons  can  hardly  fail  to  have 
gained  a  new  faith  in  human  nature,  a  new  as- 
surance that  since  she  succeeds  where  so  many 
others  have  failed,  a  still  greater  power  for  good 
may  reach  at  last  those  whom  she  cannot  in- 
fluence, that  every  prodigal  will  finally  come  to 
himself  and  be  brought  back  to  the  Father's 
house. 

But  the  greatest  mistake  of  the  advocates  of 
the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment,  in  either  its 
modern  or  its  ancient  form,  is  their  apparent 
forgetfulness  of  the  infinite  mercy  and  good- 
ness of  God.  They  seem  to  imagine  that  the 
great  drama  of  the  universe  can  be  played  with 
the  part  of  the  principal  actor  left  out.  Does 
not  the  very  thought  of  infinite  love  dissipate 
the  fogs  in  which  we  so  easily  become  involved 
and  burn  all  these  cobwebs  of  argument  from 
our  minds? 

There  are  some  things,  it  is  true,  which  even 
God  cannot  do.  He  cannot  reconcile  contradic- 
tions; He  cannot  make  anything  exist  and  not 
exist  at  the  same  time;  He  cannot  endow  man 
with  free  will  and  yet  arbitrarily  control  human 
choice.  But  He  can,  and  being  what  He  is,  He 
must,  withhold  a  power  of  which  He  knows  a 
fatal  use  will  be  made.  When  Schiller's  play, 
"  The  Robbers,"  was  first  produced,  a  critic,  who 


272  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

had  been  highly  offended  by  it,  wrote  to  Goethe 
somewhat  in  this  fashion :  "  Had  I  been  the  In- 
finite Being  meditating  the  creation  of  the  world, 
and  had  I  foreseen  that  such  a  work  as  this  would 
be  written  in  the  world  which  I  was  about  to 
make,  I  would  have  desisted  from  my  purpose  and 
would  never  have  made  the  world."  This  was, 
of  course,  only  an  exaggerated  expression  of  dis- 
gust. But  I  believe  it  may  be  said  in  all  rever- 
ence, in  all  truth  and  soberness,  that  the  universe 
never  would  have  been  made  as  it  is  if  it  had  been 
foreseen  that  it  would,  or  even  could,  involve  the 
endless  misery  of  a  single  human  soul.  Our  ex- 
istence endowed  with  free  will  is  a  guarantee 
that  the  Infinite  Father  knows  that  we  shall  all  at 
last  make  the  right  choice  —  that  without  de- 
stroying our  freedom  He  will  find  means  to  lead 
us  into  the  paths  of  righteousness.  Were  it 
otherwise  He  could  not  be  exonerated  from 
the  responsibility  for  our  ruin.  "  It  is  as  sure 
a  method  of  killing  a  man,"  someone  has  said, 
"  to  give  him  a  rope  with  which  one  knows  for  a 
certainty  that  he  will  hang  himself  as  to  stab  him 
or  have  him  stabbed  with  a  dagger."  His  death 
is  willed  as  much  by  one  who  uses  the  former 
method  as  by  one  who  uses  either  of  the  others. 

There  may  seem  to  be  no  flaw  in  the  argument 
which  proves  eternal  punishment,  but  faith  in  the 
living  God  is  not  a  matter  of  argument.  We  do 
not  find  Him  at  the  end  of  a  syllogism ;  we  know 
Him  most  directly  and  surely  by  the  witness  of 


KETRIBUTION  HERE  AND  AFTER     27S 

His  spirit  with  our  spirits,  and  if  that  does  not 
assure  us  of  the  omnipotence  of  love,  it  is  be- 
cause we  as  yet  fail  to  comprehend  its  testimony. 
There  could  not  be  joy  in  heaven  if  one  sinner 
were  forever  lost.  A  far  more  tender  sympathy, 
a  much  greater  warmth  and  disinterestedness  of 
affection  must  be  felt  by  those  who  have  been 
advancing  for  ages,  unless  our  belief  in  progress 
is  altogether  vain,  than  any  that  we  here  know. 
The  greatest  earthly  happiness  can  only  faintly 
suggest  the  delight  which  the  pure  and  good  there 
must  take  in  lifting  up  those  who  are  weighed 
down  by  the  burden  of  many  sins.  With  more 
than  a  mother's  love  for  her  first-born,  it  may 
well  be,  they  look  upon  their  struggles  and 
yearn  for  their  recovery.  To  destroy  their  hope 
for  even  the  last  one  would  be  to  put  out  the 
light  of  the  universe.  If  there  is  an  endless  hell, 
although  it  contain  but  one  occupant,  there  can 
be  no  heaven.  A  hell  there  may  be  —  I  believe 
there  is  —  as  terrible  as  any  that  the  imagination 
has  ever  painted;  but  if  it  is  not  endless,  if  its 
pains  are  remedial,  ordained  by  God  in  His 
mercy  as  a  means  of  bringing  every  wanderer 
"  to  himself  "  at  last,  its  existence  is  not  incom- 
patible with  joy.  Into  that  hell  many  enter 
while  they  are  still  on  the  earth.  Some  may  need 
ages  of  its  fires  of  moral  purification.  There  may 
be  those  who  will  for  a  time  grow  worse  instead 
of  better  in  the  next  world,  as  they  have  done  in 
this.     But  God  willeth  that  not  any  shall  perish. 


£74  RELIGION  AND  LIFE 

One  by  one  the  enemies  of  our  weakness  shall  be 
destroyed,  all  things  shall  at  last  be  subdued  to 
Him  and  He  shall  be  all  in  all. 

"  Behold  we  know  not  anything. 
I  can  but  trust  that  good  shall  fall 
At  last  —  far  off  —  at  last  to  all, 
And  every  winter  turn  to  spring." 


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